Antigravity
by sfwy
Summary: Gravity cannot be held responsible for people falling in love. - A. Einstein
1. 1

**Anti-gravity**

**Disclaimer: Don't own.**

Under the circumstances, I hadn't liked Ashley Davies very much.

I met her in junior high senior band camp. I was twelve, she was thirteen. I skipped a grade. Not many people liked me. I think I intimidated them, or they were resisting picking on me.

At first, I thought she was a boy. She pinned her hair up in a big messy pile on top of her head, she was wearing shorts and some band shirt with the words Purple Venom on it. I think it was a popular band. A lot of the kids were talking about it.

She was playing soccer with the guys when I first saw her. I remember watching her make a goal, receiving the fists to the shoulder and offers to chest-bump like a pro.

I thought she was a boy.

Until she waved her goodbyes and walked off the field, letting her hair down in one fluid motion. The brown curls cascaded down to her shoulders, naturally highlighted with hints of red, they were messy and endearing and I twirled a strand of my impeccably straight honey blonde around my fingers. I remember a slight twinge of envy.

Then I saw her face, and I knew she definitely was no boy.

* * *

I was never that girl. I never got what was so interesting about boys, about makeup, what cooties were.

I wasn't a prude, either. I just didn't choose my own clothes, trusting my mother to buy them for me: simple jeans and knee-length skirts with no frills and no labels. Solid colour t-shirts and sweatshirts, white runners and white socks, occasionally dyed pink when it was Glen's turn to do the laundry. They were just enough to be feminine, but no more.

I was simple and grounded and saw things the way they were. At most times, things were silly.

I think that's how I was attracted to Ashley.

She seemed to be fearless and strange, unassuming and unpretentious. She hadn't tried to impress any of us when I first met her, in fact, she laughed.

There was a spider in the girl's dorm. It was the size of the palm of my hand, with yellow markings.

I had reacted quite contrarily. I didn't scream, hadn't run as the other girls did. I had no fondness for the leggy creatures myself, however. The few survivors, we gathered in a C-shaped crowd around an unlucky girl's bunk, trying to wish away the revolting creature.

Ashley had come back from her game covered in grass stains, slinking straight through the crowd of us for her bunk. One look at her bed, she turned around, looked at all of us, and scoffed.

"Seriously?"

Then without hesitation, she picked up the fiend by it's back leg, marched to the door, and let it down the front steps.

Then she looked back at all of us, and laughed.

* * *

The next time I saw Ashley, I think she was trying to get a canoe to herself.

One of the teachers told her it would be impossible for a little thing like her to move that boat, and pushed me into the path of the brunette's glare.

I ducked my head and waited for the blow, but had I looked up I would've known her eyes were dancing with good humour.

"You were one of the girls standing around my bed."

She sounded on the verge of laughing, and I looked up in indignation. "There was a spider!"

"Sneaky little guys, aren't they?" She smirked at me, like she knew my secret.

I blushed.

"I spider-proofed the canoe, if that's what you're waiting for," she went on teasingly, still with that infuriating smirk. "I won't bite unless you ask me to. So get in."

I stepped gingerly into the boat, accepting the oar she offered to me handle-first.

"I'm Ashley Davies," she told me. When I latched onto the oar, she pumped the oar up and down in handshake fashion, while I grasped the handle.

She let go and looked at me. "You are?"

"Uh, Spencer Carlin."

"Nice to have already met you," she winked impishly at me and I tinged red.

"Spiders aren't that bad," I told her, desperate to cling onto my dignity.

I couldn't see her face because of the glare of the sun, but I could hear the amusement in her husky voice. "Really? What in the world could be worse than spiders?"

"Um. Ghosts?" I erred.

She burst out laughing, and I flushed again. If she noticed, she didn't say anything, instead began rowing.

And for a slender little thing like her, the canoe had moved quite a distance from the shore before I realized I hadn't moved yet.

She let out a little chuckle when I dipped my oar gingerly into the water, almost dropping it when it bounced back up from the pressure of the water. I glared at her, but she had looked away again.

Ashley Davies was infuriating.

"Ash!" An unmistakably male voice called from behind us, and Ashley slowed down our progress without a word, since my efforts to move the canoe were coming to no fruit.

It was one of the boys from the soccer game, I think. He grinned at Ashley when he came close, the slight swelling movement of his chest not gone unobserved by me.

"You finishing the game with us later?" He asked, completely disregarding me.

I didn't mind much. I didn't care much for boys.

"Of course." Ashley smirked. "If you're ready to get lose to a girl, again."

"Hey!" He grinned in challenge, when someone from their side bumped into their canoe in good humour, normal boisterous teasing between the male population that I didn't understand.

It had the domino effect. Their boat knocked into ours, ours received the brunt and toppled over.

The water was warm, but that made no difference. I hadn't known how to swim.

I thrashed about, hands sliding off the slippery boat and the water flitting around my neck until I felt two hands clasp onto my waist, and I froze, dead weight. She didn't seem to mind the extra weight, taking the pause in the pandemonium to whisper in my ear.

"Kick your feet!"

And so I had, and kept myself afloat as she propelled the both of us to the shore. There, I latched onto the beach like my life depended on it – which it did – and she crawled onto the sand after me, keeping one hand tight on my waist.

"All right, Carlin?"

I nodded, coughing away the burning in my throat from swallowing water the wrong way. She patted my back lightly until the harsh sounds subsided, and tapped my head fondly.

"I'll have to teach you how to swim," she said.

* * *

For the rest of that summer, we were the unlikeliest pair.

She was athletic, slender, strong, always knowing the things to say and favouring the wrong things, her favourite pastimes included clogging toilets and letting live animals into the boys' dorm.

I was lanky, couldn't catch a ball to save my life, preferred sitting to standing, would rather hold a pencil opposed to anything else, and didn't speak unless spoken to.

It was only one night she showed me we weren't so different after all.

"What're you doing up?"

I knew the voice and swiftly sat on my sketchpad, hiding the pencil behind crossed arms. "Enjoying the view."

She sidled up behind me, the marred wood creaking with her slight weight as she looked out over the still flat blue-black lake and the stacks of canoes, then back to the sand-caked docks where I sat with my legs dangling off the side. "Not drowning in the view, I hope."

"Shut up." I elbowed her leg, letting out a frustrated hiss and an undeniable smile.

She only laughed, slipping silently to her knees beside me, splashing me with the water as her runners skimmed the surface of the water. I noticed the notepad she had under arm, and she noticed the one I was sitting on.

"Lemme see."

"No way," I put on my best stern front, and she snickered.

"You look funny when you do that."

"No I don't."

"Yes you do. Admit it."

My response was cut off my her merciless fingers on my sides, probing my ribs and in my haste to stand up, I lost my balance and tumbled off the side of the dock.

"Spence? Spencer?" There was genuine worry in her voice when she called out, leaning over the side of the dock on her hands and knees as my head broke the surface.

"The water is shallow, Einstein."

It was true, and the water sat still around my chest when I stopped my frantic splashing to glare up at her as she laughed helplessly.

"Thank you, Sherlock." I paused, crossing my arms, splashing myself in the face in the process, prompting a fit of spluttering and a fit of laughter from the brunette. "That wasn't funny!"

"Oh, it so was."

"Humph."

She chuckled a bit at my petulant response, and to my surprise, got onto her knees and offered out her hands. I had only touched the tips of my fingers to hers when she withdrew them and grinned under my withering glare.

"Only if you give me one of your drawings, hm?"

"That's not fair," I pointed out. "You push me into the water and won't even help me out?"

"I didn't push you. You fell in."

"Ugh." The chill had set in, and I gave up. "Fine."

She smirked and grabbed my sketchpad, flipping through it and ripping out a page. Wordlessly, she put it back down, grabbed my hands, and lifted me until I could pull myself from the water.

"I'm going to change," I snapped, as soon as I was on dry land and my sketchpad was back in possession. I was being petulant, but the water was cold and the unpleasant sensation was doubled when the air hit my skin.

Sensing my petulance, she ripped a page out of her notebook, the notebook that she never opened in front of anyone, and tucked it into my front shirt pocket.

"See you later," she smiled slyly, picked up her things, and went her way.

When I flipped through my sketchpad later, the uncompleted picture I'd drawn of the curly-haired brunette was gone.

* * *

Ashley changed a lot when she hit fourteen. She started wearing midriff-bearing vests and tank tops, skirts that barely skimmed the tops of her thighs.

She had every right to, I guess. Her skin was perfectly and flawlessly tan. Her abs were subject to envy and she had svelte, toned legs that screamed athleticism.

Once again, I found myself in her shadow. I had always been in her shadow, but I hadn't minded so much. It was only then I found myself subject to scorn.

I'd become Ashley's best friend then, her distraction from the hordes of girls and boys looking for her attention. She was a goddess in her own right, the quintessence of high school popularity. Underneath her unearthly beauty, unbelievable confidence, infamous arrogance, I lost faith in the tomboyish brunette I knew from summer camp.

And I started avoiding her. I wasn't that girl, I never was. I couldn't compare to the boys that looked like they'd just stepped out a magazine, the girls that radiated confidence and beauty that I would never have, competing for Ashley's interest. For the life of me, it would best be ludicrous to stand next to Ashley Davies and pretend to belong. The best thing I could've done was cop out of the competition before I could be let down with excruciating slowness.

I was Spencer Carlin, the faceless girl.

She was Ashley Davies, and she was everything.

"Why are you avoiding me?"

I was never good at lying to her. She was never good at leaving me alone.

"I'm not."

She sighed, crossing the empty restroom in a few steps and cornering me between the sinks and the stalls. "You know, you're a horrible liar."

My eyes drifted over her shoulder, instinctively looking for the quickest escape, but my voice gave away everything. "You locked the door."

"I won't lie about that." She sighed and placed her hands on my arms. "Stop squirming and look at me.

"Answer my question." Her voice demanded, her eyes probed, and everything was as clear tot her as if I had screamed the answer to the empty room.

Her eyes widened and she took her bottom lip between her teeth, taking away her right hand to trace the path of a tear down my cheek I hadn't noticed with the pad of her thumb.

"Spencer…" She stepped forward, fingers curled tightly around my shoulders. "You know I'll never leave you, right?"

She pulled me into her, wrapping me up too easily in her warmth and reassurances, like she always had been able to. I wondered if she could feel the unbearable pressure in my chest, the simultaneous sensation of guilt and relief.

"You're everything, Spencer."

She was Ashley Davies, and she saw things nobody else could see.

* * *

It was the fourth summer after summer camp, rushing by because I let it. If only I had known, I would have never let go.

She rolled onto her stomach, caressing the wrinkles from the covers of her bed. "You know how I've been auditioning?"

"Yeah?"

She smiled softly, as if only allowing herself a minimal amount of excitement. "I got a record deal."

If she wasn't about to show appropriate enthusiasm for herself, I would show her more than my worth. I let out an uncharacteristic scream and crushed her hand between mine.

"Ashley!"

She grinned at my outburst. "I know."

"What do you mean you know?" I shook her hand wildly. "This is great! No, it's not just great, it's amazing. You've been auditioning for so long. God, Ash!"

"Yeah…"

The grin faded and she looked so grave I paused to allow a frown. "What's wrong?"

She let her hand fall from my grasp, forehead lined with worry as she contemplated my face. There was a sudden flash of fondness, then, softness in her striking features, promptly replaced by regret. "I'm moving to Hollywood. The label doesn't want me moving back and forth all the time." She squeezed my hand, searching my face nervously. "It's only about an hour from here, you know."

"Okay," I uttered, all coherent thought leaving me in one breath. But I plastered a smile on my face, because Ashley had been wanting this longer than I had known her. It was laughable to think I could ask her to stay.

"I'll call and visit." She seized my hand, pinning me with an ardent look before I could nod and smile away the heavy moment. "I promise, Spencer."

It was my mistake to think Ashley would go without a bang.

It could've just been a kiss between friends, it could've just been the single most devastating and achingly perfect moment of my life. It was quick, over before I ever even could comprehend that her soft warm lips were touching mine in an intimate gesture she seemed so used to and I'd never had the pleasure of having before.

I didn't know if Ashley Davies counted as my first kiss.

"_You know I'll never leave you, right?"_

I couldn't know, because the next thing I knew, I was smiling and waving to the back of a limo.

* * *

It started with the smell of salt, a soft wet breeze, sand-caked wood, and water flitting around my neck. It started with breathless panic, and a calm in the form of hands meant to save me.

I ease into the water. It's the dead of winter, the water's black and calm for miles around. The only light is from the moon and the distant, foggy lights of the city. The only lights worth keeping are the memories she left me with.

"_I'll have to teach you how to swim."_

The water flits around my neck and closes around my head, but there's no panic. It feels comforting, like the sea I've come to know and love, and familiar like the impulse to begin to kick my feet and swim back to the shore with practiced ease from six summers ago. Four of those summers of those to keep me warm tonight, and the seventh summer I know will never come.


	2. 2

_A/N__**: **__One-shot? I'm flattered. All I see is flimsy plot, underdeveloped characters. Nevertheless. No end in sight._

**Edit: Italics for flashbacks. Didn't show up when I uploaded it to the site, sorry.**

* * *

I dreamt of lines. Lines that pitched up and down and disappeared into ends I couldn't see. I dreamt of slow rhythmic throbs of a heart that became tinny, recurrent beeps of a machine.

It was cold, so cold. I looked for a breath escaping between my lips but it was dark, then, and suddenly so warm. So heavily warm, sitting between my eyelids in the dark that wasn't really dark, but an explosion of bright white lights that sent me reeling in pain.

"She's awake."

It was only when I heard a voice I knew I wasn't dreaming or dead, and I was so afraid for moment that I'd spend forever in that place with the beeps and cold. I knew because it wasn't the voice of an angel or the loud deep booming one everyone supposed God had. It was old, tired, and motherly.

"Is she okay to talk?"

I open my mouth to tell them, but all that comes out is a disjointed whimper ripping out of my throat like fire. The cool stiff edge of a straw is put up against my lips, and the liquid is warm and bitter. I turn my head away at first, until it slides down my throat like honey and the ache is gone.

A man leans over me, his hair is wet and his blue uniform is dripping onto my white sterile sheets. He smells like the sea, and his fingers are wet and cold when they touch my hand. "Do you know where you are?"

"Hospital?"

The look he gives me is sympathetic, the one I've seen so many times before, only but this time it's not laced with disgust. "Yes. Is this yours?" He holds up an old tattered wallet and speaks slowly. His voice is so loud and I try not to cringe.

I nod, and he opens it and rifles through the meagre, soaked contents, speaking mostly to himself. "Uh, there isn't much in here. No cards, ID, receipts…"

It takes a few seconds for me to register the direction his words are taking. "Spencer Carlin. I'm eighteen."

He nods, wincing at the hoarse, forced quality to my voice. "Is there any family we should call?"

"I don't have any family."

He looks as if he's about to object, when the old voice cuts in. "Sir, the poor girl needs to rest."

He knits his eyebrows together. I close my eyes and dream of better things.

* * *

_The nurse pushed our gurneys apart, checking the time with a wayward glance at the wall clock._

_"Past midnight already, girls! Stop talking and sleep."_

_Safety precautions had kept us from participating in camp activities for the rest of the day, and made for a completely unnecessary overnight stay in the on-site ward. I had enjoyed the seclusion at first, until Ashley wrestled my sketchpad away from me and coerced me into keeping her company. I feigned exasperation at first, until I realized it was mostly just Ashley keeping me company._

_As soon as the nurse disappeared back into her office, Ashley turned to me with an elfin grin. "Still up for a swim tomorrow?"_

_I groaned. "After spending today with you? Anything."_

_She laughed, knowing I meant none of it. "I'm teaching you even if it means you're going to be a grouch all day, Carlin. I don't break promises."_

_I hid a smile. "Stop calling me Carlin. Only Glen gets called that."_

_"Glen?"_

_"My brother."_

_She allowed a very slow grin. "Really? You're bossy, I thought you'd be an only child."_

_I swatted her bed, the only part I could reach. "Speak for yourself!"_

_The nurse made an obnoxious shushing noise, but I caught an unmistakable wicked glint in Ashley's eye before she turned her face to the dark._

_"Sweet dreams, Spencer."_

* * *

"…saw Spencer at the docks, midnight, she called in and asked us to check it out."

My room is dark when I wake next, the hospital lights have dimmed but I can make out the silhouettes of two people in the doorway to my room.

"If it wasn't for her, we wouldn't have made it in time."

"Have a little more faith, officer."

"Yeah. She was pretty spooked, too. But she's been asking about Spencer… it's amazing how compassionate she is, considering her reputation and all…"

"You know the confidentiality policy."

"I know. But Spencer's like what, the fifth this month? She's the youngest of them all, even. Where do they keep coming from? Throwing away their lives like…"

"She's the only one that hasn't had anyone come for her."

"And we can't put out an alert until she wakes up. Barely legal age but we have to follow protocol…"

"Someone always comes, officer. You should go back to the station."

I roll over and bunch the sheets around my head, drowning out their voices.

* * *

_Ashley called every night for the first month. It would be anywhere from ten at night to three in the morning, but I gave her the green light to wake me up. Most of the time, I couldn't sleep until I heard her voice._

_"Hey Einstein!"_

_"Hey Sherlock." I traced the dark still ceiling with my eyes as drowned out voices and a faint pounding bass beat came in over the line. "Where are you?"_

_"E…" She paused to giggle at a distorted male voice. "Ego."_

_I smiled at the sound. "Having fun?"_

_"Lots. I wish you were here!" She slurred and I squeezed my eyes tightly shut to try to stop wondering if she meant what she said. The Ashley Davies I knew always meant what she said._

_The alarm radio on the nightstand flashed four AM in fluorescent red and I counted the measly hours I had left to sleep. I smiled, remembering waking up to her newest single that morning. I had wanted to tell her, but now just didn't seem like the right time. "Yeah, me too."_

_"Spence, you sound tired." She sounded miraculously sober for minute, and I stopped minding the bass beats and buzzing voices. "Have you been up all night?"_

_"Uh, yeah. I couldn't sleep," I admitted sheepishly._

_"Sleep, okay? You shouldn't stay up for…" She paused, and I could hear the rasp of a breath over the line. "You need to sleep, Spence."_

_"I will. Hey, so, when are you coming to –"_

_I broke off when her end erupted in noise. "Spence? I have to go. I'll call you later, okay?" She paused for effect, or maybe to consider her next words, then added firmly, "I promise."_

_"Okay."_

_I slept soundly for one more night._

_"Hey, Ash? You haven't called yet and I have school in an hour so ah, hey. I hope you're safe. Having fun. Call me later, okay?" I lingered awhile, hoping that she would miraculously pick up and greet me in that way that made me smile._

_And so it came down to that on every thoroughly long night, I would speak to her machine._

* * *

The dim sunlight slants in such a way that if I hadn't recognized the newest addition to my bedside table, I wouldn't have noticed it at all. I reach out for it before it'll disappear and I'll realize that this, this is all a dream.

The paper is coarse, it hasn't been long enough for me to not recognize the texture of sketch paper. It's been folded into impeccably perfect quarters and I open it to lips, full soft perfect lips with the beginnings of a smirk, the gentle slope of a feminine jaw, curly multi-toned hair and eyes that are still two faint smudges, two faint smudges I'd erased them into over and over again six years ago.

I could never get it right. No, especially not the eyes. There was no way I could've captured Ashley Davies on paper, not the way she smiled or the way she spoke or the wrinkle on the bridge of her nose, and certainly not all three at the same time. There was no way I could've captured her, her voice, the way she laughed, the way she seemed to look at me, not in any way that could've done her any justice. I wanted to remember her, but, how could I have captured her in a way less than the way she was?

My breath won't leave my chest because she was here, and now she's not.

But now, it all comes down to one moment: Ashley Davies finally calls me back.

"_Sweet dreams, Spencer." _

How long have I been awake?

One year, three months, and six days.

But I know I'll sleep soundly tonight.


	3. 3

_**Flashbacks in italics.**_

* * *

_It was the type of night where Ashley and I used to curl up on the couch, go through my collection of comedies, and forget the rain and the thunder outside. _

_The type of night, tonight, that I curled up in bed and wondered where I put my comedies. All it took was for the phone to light up, displaying a call ended from Hollywood, Los Angeles when I picked it up, and I was tearing down the stairs through the dark house to the front door. _

_Undoing the lock, I knew I wasn't prepared for what came next, for what I saw. There were traces of mascara down Ashley's cheeks, mingling with the rain and maybe tears, her almost sheer blouse, bare feet as she held her heels together in one hand. _

_What I saw was how she was far more gorgeous than I could've ever remembered her as, and how my memory failed me in remembering this single most important thing. _

_Then I thought of the magazine that was on my bed upstairs, with Ashley's name and face splashed across the cover and even though Ashley had a skin thicker than any I had ever known I read the article and felt my heart break. I thought to call her, but then maybe she didn't want to hear from me. _

_Ashley Davies stepped into my house, and closed the door behind her. "Don't," she said softly when I opened my mouth to say anything, and I knew without a doubt she'd been crying. "Can I just stay with you tonight?" _

_I stopped to remember the countless times she'd asked me the same thing, but that day was different. That day was the two week mark since she stopped calling, and I briefly considered my options. I considered crawling back into a cold bed for a sleepless night waiting on a phone that wouldn't ring, or a night with Ashley. _

_Needless to say, there were no options and nothing to consider. _

"_Come on." I turned to go upstairs, lacing my fingers through hers. _

_She resisted, freeing her hand. "Paula and Arthur, are they home?" _

"_Yeah, but…" I tried not to give her a strange look, but she had never asked me that before. She had never cared who they were, in fact, but she got along just for my sake. _

_She wiped her cheeks roughly with the backs of her hands. "But if they find out I'm here…you know how Paula is, does she know? She might not want me here –" She tried to be subtle about it, but the way she avoided touching me sent every word she said that was not supposed to mean anything tugging at my heart. _

"_They're not important," I told her decisively, and believed every word I said. "Ashley, you know you're still the same person to me." I didn't understand how that could've ever been a question from the beginning. Only, I wondered if I was the same person to her, and I tried not to answer my own question. _

_When she didn't answer, I took her hand in mine again and led her upstairs, leaving her on my bed to get dry clothes and a towel. When I got back, with everything bundled up in my arms, she was already asleep, sprawled out on a bed I tried to stop picturing her on every time I saw it. _

_Halfway through unbuttoning her blouse, I felt her shift drowsily, arching her back and pushing her chest into my hands as she pulled out the magazine from under her, cracking open her eyes to look at it. _

"_Ashley Davies comes out," she read quietly, eyes searching mine. "Her one night stands and…" _

_I flushed and grabbed it out of her hand, dropping it to the side of the bed. "Tabloids."_

"_You know it's true." She murmured. After all, that was why she was here, away from everything. I was her away from everything, and it felt good, that I could be anything after all this time._

"_They're saying things," she continued softly. "A lot of things." _

_Things that hurt me as much as they hurt her. "I don't believe any of it." _

"_What do you know?" She propped herself up on her elbows, eyes shining in the dark. "I sleep with a new girl every week. Roadies, crew, fans, whatever. I don't even have any standards. I'm slut, a whore. Whatever they're calling me these days. What do you know, Spencer?" She sounded irate, maybe at herself, maybe at me. I didn't understand. _

_So I met her gaze so evenly, holding my breath. "Whose fault would that be?" _

_No time to take it back, the last contact broke as her eyes left mine and she rolled over, away from me, sitting up on the opposite side of the bed. I didn't know if she was trying to leave or not, but I wasn't about to chance it._

"_Sherlock." That was it, the term of endearment that rolled so easily from my tongue, fell so easily from my lips. My heart fell so quickly and painfully for a split second as I wondered if I had said the wrong thing –_

"_Einstein." She responded so readily, and turned her face, her profile silhouetted by the streetlight through my bedroom window._

_I tried in vain to see her expression ."I'm sorry." _

"_No, you're not." She said, although I was. "You have nothing to be sorry for. We both know whose fault it is. For not calling, for not talking, for not visiting. Mine." _

"_Maybe I wasn't trying hard enough, maybe –" _

"_Shut up, Spencer." She snapped, roughly. I thought maybe it was the harshest way she had ever spoken to me. _

_And she covered her mouth, trying to seal everything in. "Oh, God. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." _

_Her voice quivered and broke as I covered the last little bit of distance between us, and as I instigated contact I hadn't even known I craved, I wondered who really was hurting tonight, her or me. _

_Who this embrace was really meant to comfort. _

_She felt cold, wet through the thin fabric of my shirt, but her lips were warm when they brushed against my cheek as she rested her head on my shoulder, just missing my ear. Her hands were warm as they came around my back, stroking down my spine to the hem of my shirt and bunching up the fabric there, holding me in place. I wondered if this would be the last time I'd see her, if I should treat it as such._

"_God, Spencer. You're everything." Her lips brushed against my neck, the vibrations from her voice traveling straight through me. _

"_Everything." _

_I shivered then, and decided it wouldn't matter._

* * *

It isn't because I don't know that Ashley Davies has been standing outside my room for the past hour. I heard her apologize when someone in the hall walked into her, heard the sounds of her pacing, even that tuneless little song she used to hum when she was nervous.

The same tuneless song she used to hum down the phone when I couldn't sleep.

And I can't stand it. "Ashley, stop it."

I could easily believe time stops the second she stops humming. Then she appears at the doorway, and I forget to blink or breathe. I look at her and she looks like my memory has failed me, again.

"You called?" She asks, approaching the bed.

"No, I think you did."

She nods, slowing to a standstill beside the bed, stuttering a few times before she finally speaks. "Look. I didn't know it was you when I called. I was just going check if whoever it was, if they were okay, you know, if I could do anything for them – you. Then I heard them talking about you." Looking away from me, I still caught the motion of her forehead creasing. "You were under for awhile, I almost thought…"

"I died."

"If I knew it was you –" She looks at me fiercely.

"You wouldn't have done anything, either."

"Maybe couldn't, but I would've tried."

I briefly consider where this conversation is going. "Why are you still here? I'm okay. I'm sure you're busy and…"

She interrupts me then, her voice harsh and loud in the empty room. "What did you think you were doing, Spencer? Did you even think?"

It hardly takes anything for me match her tone, match the way she feels. God knows for how long I've felt this way, longer than her for all I know. "I could ask you the same thing."

She visibly takes a step back, utter guilt overwhelming her features. But I can't stop, the floodgates are open and more than a year's worth of things I need to say rush out. "You can't possibly expect to walk back into my life and pretend nothing's changed! You can't walk back in after a year and who knows how long and start caring again. You can't just walk out and waltz back in again. It doesn't work like that, Ashley! We aren't the same, we aren't friends, and you're not…"

The high pitched ringing in my ears changes into the high pitched ringing of the machines crowding the room.

My chest heaves, but I don't feel. "I can't breathe, Ashley." And she can't save me this time.

Complete horror written all over her face, she breaks into a sprint out of the room.

An hour later, when all the nurses aren't standing around my bed trying to fix me, it'll be like nothing ever happened.

* * *

It's dark when Ashley comes again. We don't speak. I don't move when the bed dips when she sits on the end, as far away as she can.

"You should call home, you know," she starts so quietly. "They'll be out of their minds by now."

"_What do you know?" _

"They won't."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"People – things change, Ashley." We both catch my double entendre, but speak nothing of it. We both catch the stilted way I say her name, the split second pause between the first syllable of Ashley and the last that no one else would've thought twice of.

"What's changed?" She asks quietly, crossing every line.

Just like that, every highest and widest wall I've put up since she left crumbles. All it takes is for her to step into my life and say the things she says, things she doesn't need to think twice about. Things that can shatter and break my world, things that jerk at my heart with puppet strings. She's my everything, and I hate her as much as I love her.

I almost wish I never met her, almost, so she can never walk in and out of my life as she pleases. So she wouldn't be standing in front of me right now, and I wouldn't be so ready to give myself up again.

It would be so easy, after all.

"_Everything." _

"Everything."


	4. 4

_Ashley left. _

_She left before I woke up, changing back into her damp clothes and leaving my boxers and shirt in a neat pile on the dresser. _

_I turned on the TV, went to find my cell phone so I could call her maybe, ask her if last night really happened, when I heard a faint word. "… Davies." _

_Ashley, live on air, fresh from the suburbs of Los Angeles, my bedroom, walking out of the club, in her dark heels, scandalously short skirt, leather jacket, sunglasses that hid everything from the world, from me._

_She tipped the whiskey coloured bottle in her left hand against her lips, as someone shouted her name from behind the camera. _

_She turned unsteadily and looked straight at the lens, and smiled that smile that used to be meant just for me. _

* * *

Ashley left.

She wouldn't leave without a fight, but when the nurse threatened to call security she finally had, pausing at the threshold to give me a long look I wouldn't return.

That was last night.

The sun's barely above the horizon when I buzz into my apartment, in some shoddy place downtown that six years ago, I wouldn't have looked twice at or gone within any distance of. I call this home, now.

There's a doormat of fresh letters inside that the door skids over. The apartment smells damp, like dirty clothes, like dust. I wonder if it's worth it opening the windows and being cold all night.

I pick up the letters, dropping them onto the card table in the kitchen. There are dirty dishes still in the sink, paper from old letters and flyers still littered on the floor where I've tried to sketch on them. There are the new letters on my card table, stamped with 'overdue' in red ink, big black block letters with numbers asking for money I don't have.

Money I won't have. I wonder if maybe I hadn't come back at all, if they would come looking for me. What their faces would look like when they realized I couldn't pay them anymore.

God, no one would've even noticed if not for Ashley. It would've been so easy – and now it's not anymore.

I bury my face in my palms and try to take a composing breath, and all I get is shaky and stuttering, I can hardly feel the air entering my lungs. I can feel white panic creeping up on my periphery, threatening to close up my throat and well up tears where they don't belong.

It's not until someone raps at the door sharply once, twice, not stopping, I notice. I hope it's not the man from next door looking to borrow money again, because I have nothing left to give.

"Spencer, I know you're in there."

I hear myself gasp faintly. Even now, I recognize Ashley's voice through the door, and it takes all my willpower not to run to her and her warmth, reassurances, maybe now deceit.

I don't need her anymore.

"This lock looks pretty dingy," Ashley continues.

I can't help but smile at her attempt at a threat. I hear a muffled thump, then, heavy footsteps that can't be Ashley's.

"What're you doing?" Her muffled voice cuts through the door.

And I'm out of my seat, undoing the three bolts and locks on the door, pulling it open so it rattles on it's hinges.

It's Eden from next door, towering over Ashley as she takes a defensive pose.

"Eden, I don't think she has any money on her," I lie quickly, trying so hard not to cringe.

He looks at me, brow furrowing, I try not to breathe a sigh of relief Ashley can hear when he shrugs in defeat and lumbers back down the hallway.

"Sorry," I say, before I remember what has changed between me and her.

She gets a face like she doesn't know whether to smile or frown. "It's okay."

The light overhead flickers and fizzles out. I stopped noticing these things months ago, but when Ashley's standing here in her thousand dollar shoes and that look on her face, I wish I could be anywhere but here. "How'd you find me?"

"I have connections."

I look at my shoes and try hard not to smile. "Right."

I hear her sigh, feel the sudden warmth of her hand under my chin. "Have you been crying?"

Tearing my face away, I step back blindly. It's been awhile, anyone's touched in a way I like. "What's it to you?"

I look for her biting the inside of her cheek, the way I used to watch for when she held back from making some biting retort. But all she does is look at me and soften her eyes impossibly.

I bring my hands to together, wringing before I can stop myself, a gesture Ashley used to ridicule. "What do you want, Ashley?"

Her eyes dart up from my hands, confidence returning to her tone, holding herself up now, in a way I'm so familiar to. "I want to know why you're living in place like this."

"What makes you think you have the right to know?"

She looks down at my hands again, and I quickly drop them. "Because I know you, Spence. People like you don't live in places like this. You deserve so much more than this –"

"You know me?" I let out a wry laugh. "The Spencer," I enunciate almost bitterly, "you knew wouldn't be here. Maybe you should look somewhere else." Stiffly turning to go back into the apartment, not bothering to gauge her reaction, I think of her fancy neighbourhood in Hollywood, with maybe the pretty blonde across the street she screws every weekend, the lovesick boy next door who offers to mow her lawn every week, the loud parties she throws no one ever complains about.

I wonder if I know her.

The closing door meets the thwack of her palm against the marred wood, as she covers that last distance between the door and me. I look at her face, trying to convey my exasperation, when I see her eyes are trained on the room over my shoulder.

No going back now, because she's seen all of it. The hall that leads to the empty bedroom, the grubby couch with a tacky floral print I sleep on, the kitchen with it's single folding chair, cardboard boxes used as corner tables, the few clothes I have all stacked up in a miserable little pile.

I hear her sharp intake of breath, and when she looks at me, her eyes have no trace of warm honey brown left.

"You live here." Her tone is steely, so unfathomably angry again.

"No kidding."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Why would I?" I counter, and feel as if it's getting old.

"Why wouldn't you? Hospital patients aren't supposed to leave and come back to a place like this. You shouldn't be coming back to a place like this –"

"I'm sorry, Ashley, but not everyone's as well off at you."

I see her jaw clench, and it's not as gratifying as I wished it would be, hurting her. "You should've told me. I could've helped you."

"I don't need your help."

"You don't?" Her eyes wander the room again, stopping at the letters on the table, reading some of the big ugly block text, perhaps, then wandering slowly, deliberately, back to me, proving her point so firmly, painfully with every perfect breath she takes in this desolate place.

I grit my teeth together and shake my head no.

She nods once, and closes the door behind her.

* * *

I think about Ashley as I smooth out my white blouse and black slacks, the same ones I wear to wait tables except for Sundays. Sundays, when I don't work, loitering for hours at the mall and looking at the paints and the pencils the way Ashley and I used to pore over clothes years ago. I can pretend that I actually belong there, just for a day. That I actually have enough money to indulge. The closest I can get today, is outside the store.

That's never happened before.

Of all days today, I can't even bring myself to go inside, bask in the familiar warm yellow studio lights. I don't belong, in the two sets of clothes I alternate throughout the week, the tattered dark grey wool coat that looks three sizes too big.

Ashley just had to come last night, and prove it to me without wanting to at all. Change everything without trying at all, walking away without thinking at all – again.

So I take my time walking home, not wanting to see the bills on the table and the man from next door who needs money as much as I do. I put the key in the lock, walk into my apartment, flicking on the switch that's on the right of the door.

The room's illuminated with white fluorescent light bulbs.

Everything's gone, and the bills are a pile of ashes.


	5. 5

**A/N: Thank you all muchly for leaving feedback! De-lurkers make me all sorts of happy.**

**If it helps anything, the present is totally linear. The flashbacks (italics) are randomly ordered as corresponding to the present or whatever the heck I feel like writing. **

**Enjoy. **

* * *

"Spencer. Talk to me."

Her hand is warm on my elbow – where the fabric has been worn to threads, where I didn't have enough to spare money to buy a sewing kit.

She hadn't meant anything, but I wrench my arm away, awareness increasing tenfold by that one simple benign touch in the wrong place. She frowns and doesn't try to touch me again.

"I paid everything off, but the landlord already found a new tenant," Ashley lets on gently, moving her hands like she needs contact.

"But everything was already evacuated by the time I got here." Ashley looks at my feet, rambling anxiously. "I tried to convince him to take you back, throw a few names around, but he didn't believe me."

It doesn't feel as if she's trying to comfort me. It feels as she's just waiting. Waiting to catch me, and it just makes my resolve collapse. I almost want blame it all on her, but I would never be able to. It's my fault for thinking I'd ever deserve anyone like her.

I'm not sure who deserves who anymore. Who I am. Who she is. Why everything is that has ever mattered and needed to matter disappeared in hardly more than a year. Just never my life, because this ridiculous morbid cruel world wants to see me on my knees.

"Oh God, oh God." I can't breathe again, but I don't want her to catch me.

"Spencer!"

She'll just turn around and drop me.

* * *

"_So where do you think we'll be after we're out of this hellhole?" _

_My fifteen year old self rolled over on the grass, eyelids heavy with lazy warm summer afternoons and soothing words and promises of best friends. _

_We were away from the rest of the students, under a tree behind the school, so I didn't hesitate to smile and speak firmly, knowing how many implications there would be if anyone else heard that one word that could mean so much, "Together." I smiled and extended my arms into a full-body stretch lazily and moaning as the kinks left my muscles. _

_I clapped a hand over my mouth at the silence that followed, not having realized the suggestive sound at left me at all. Ashley coughed, like she had a tickle in her throat. _

"_Well, Captain Obvious to the rescue," she chuckled quietly and reached across the cool grass, tugging my shirt back down over my exposed abdomen. Ashley didn't take her hand away, settling on smoothing out invisible wrinkles on the cotton fabric. "But what do you think we'll be doing? We both know you'll be in a swanky art college and stranding me here." _

_My hands came back to link behind my head, resisting playing with Ashley's hands now as they were still across my abdomen, her eyes unfocused in a future she seemed so able to see. I looked hard and tried to see if her face would give anything away, but all I saw was her. _

"_Nah, I'll be a flat broke artist drawing lame caricatures for tourists. You'll be singing. Famous. Millions of fans, worshipping you," I deadpanned. She smiled smugly at me, and I grinned impishly back and pushed further. "Not to mention I'll have to see your ugly mug all over the place all the time!" _

_She took back all her hands, all the warm touches I missed, drawing them back to her chest. Sliding out her bottom lip, she feigned hurt. Still I could see a flicker of insecurity in the languid pools of brown, slipping out before she could catch it, before she maybe even realized it was even there. That was Ashley, hardly knowing what insecurity was, when I knew it so well because I had to be around her. But I'd never seen that before, not even when the rumours were at their most merciless, not even when their words ought to draw blood. _

"_Geez, Ashley." I carefully hid my revelations glibly. "You're gorgeous, you know that? Not fake like – like them, the cheerleaders or some of the other girls. You're so real. The boys are all over you, you know? I hear them in the halls sometimes. Ashley this, Ashley that. You're not one night to them. You're probably the most beautiful girl they'll ever lay their eyes on." It wasn't eloquent, not the way I wanted it to be, only little shining fragments of truth hidden behind the broken sentences of my fifteen years. _

_I wanted it to mean so much. _

"_Am I?" _

"_Are you what?" _

_She shrugged, looking away. I could swear her cheeks were a shade pinker than they usually were. "The most beautiful girl you've ever laid your eyes on?" _

"_Girls, the bell rang five minutes ago!"_

_I paused before I entered the cool shade of the school and Ashley turned back, forehead creased._

"_Spence, what's wrong?" _

_Smiling inwardly at her concern, I gestured grandly. "The most beautiful woman I've ever laid my eyes on, first." _

"_You two!" _

_She looked at the waiting hall monitor and over at me, the hard, roguish exterior of her eyes falling in to a softness that matched the state of my insides. _

_She linked our fingers in a sudden fit fondness that I had never known. She smiled and squeezed, leaving me feeling faintly giddy and with a smile that hurt. _

"_Sometime today, girls?" _

_She never took her eyes off mine. "Well, what are you waiting for?"_

* * *

I turn around and head out the door. Down the steps I've slipped on countless times in my haste to get away from the men smoking in the lot. Crossing the street where there's never enough lighting. Past the apartment complex at the end of the street where I've seen a little girl wait outside in the rain for her mother to take her to school. It's so dark now, but I can't remember the last time I haven't seen these things.

She's in her car with the window rolled down, catching up to me, but she could've easily passed me if I ran if she hasn't changed. "Spencer, stop. Where are you going?"

"I don't need your help, Ashley."

"I know." Her tires screech, following me as a turn a sharp corner. "Stop walking."

I deliberate running off into an alley or the park I know is up ahead, but I don't want her to follow me and get hurt. "Stop following me."

"You're not really in the position to tell me what to do right now, Spencer."

"And you're not in the position to play best friend," I bite my lip but it just doesn't stop me from saying these things that I would've never said. "Or any kind of friend, really."

She's silent, following me slowly in her car. I even start considering apologizing when she speaks. "When you said penniless artist, I didn't quite imagine this."

"I'm not an artist either. Imagine that."

"You're an artist," Ashley says strongly. "You've always been."

The wheels of her Porsche crunch on gravel, she's in her thousand dollar jacket and I shiver until it hurts. "You're one to talk. Look at you. Look at me."

I don't even have to look to know she's her fingering the wheel restlessly, the way she used to when something was bothering her. "You've always been more of an artist than I've been, Spence."

I hate that I can't tell if she's lying, the way I used to be able to. Whether she's just sweet-talking me or means what she says. I consider telling her I hate her, but she'd tell me I don't mean it and I'd believe her.

"Don't call me that!" My hands are fists and my fingernails dig into my palms, but it does nothing to distract from the burning in my throat. "What do you want from me?"

* * *

"_Ashley, I… wow, this must be like the hundredth message." I knew, I had been counting. _

_I sighed out, before I figured it that if she ever listened to this, she would've heard. I was still running my fingers over the black sweater on the dresser, all Ashley left behind when she left for Hollywood. It's a been awhile since she stopped calling me every night from Hollywood, and when I bring the fabric to my nose I'm think I must be desperate enough to think I can smell her. _

_I pressed my phone into my shoulder, holding it in place as I continued fingering the soft fabric, not even registering what I was doing. "I don't know Ashley, you probably don't even bother listen to these things anymore." _

"_I guess I should be feeling pretty pathetic, but I really don't. I don't feel pathetic for missing you Ash, I just feel pathetic if you don't miss me too. I know you still remember me Ash, why won't you call me back?" _

"_Is… is there something wrong with me? Am I not good enough for you?" _

_I felt like I was falling at the speed of light from best friend status to one night stand. The one night stands she never called back, either. The one night stands she took from and never gave back to, only I wasn't sure what she had taken. All I knew was I wanted it back. I wanted it back in words and touches and promises that wouldn't be broken. _

_God, did I ever want her back. _

"_When are you coming home, Ash?"_

_Half a sob manages to claw it's way out of my throat before I slam the phone back down into the receiver._

_Exactly one hundred messages, only one way to still be ignored. I felt pathetic that if she ever listened to me that night, she might have heard it._

_She never did call me back. _

* * *

"I want you to be safe tonight. Come with me, Spencer."

I'm seething, not noticing I've stopped walking. Anyone looking out a window at this ungodly hour will see a girl in her Porsche and a too-thin girl in an excuse of a coat.

How I've always felt around her.

"I'm not your charity case."

"I know."

"So why?" I scowl, keeping my eyes on the streetlight that's bathing our moment in amber light.

"Because I'm –" She pauses, I think maybe I can hear a sniffle. Or maybe it's just one of the loose pieces of litter, skittering under my feet. "Look around you."

I look around and I see black lonely nights and compost and flickered-out lamps.

"Get in the car, Spencer. Please."

I look at her and I see warm brown eyes and a smile and hands that have touched me now and again. Hands I had needed to touch me now and forever.

Do I really still need her? Have I ever stopped needing her?

"_Well, what are you waiting for?" _

I don't notice I'm crying until she's out of the car, touching my elbow where the fabric frayed.


	6. 6

"_Who hurt you?" _

_The back of her palm met her face before she turned to face me, but she didn't know I had been watching her from the door. She'd made all the tell tale signs – shoulders shaking, quiet noises. _

_She had obviously been crying. Any other sixteen year old would've been able to tell that. _

"_No…" _

"_Cut the bull, Ash," my tone sounded grating even to my ears. Crossing the room and joining Ashley on the bed, I rubbed her bare knee in what I hoped was a consoling gesture. "What happened?" _

_She seemed to hesitate, pretending to scratch an itch on her face. "The Purple Venom vest my dad left me. It's gone." _

_I glowered, looking around the room like it would be miraculously lying somewhere in plain sight. "Who do you think took it?" _

"_I…" She stiffened, I pushed. _

"_Who, Ash?" _

"_I had a girl over last night." _

_I shot to my feet, suddenly disgusted and feeling faintly betrayed, knowing that some girl had her hands all over Ashley. That the bed I was sitting on – it repulsed me, and I didn't know why. _

_Ashley looked at me, and her eyes were pleading._

_In this moment, I could have accepted I couldn't know everything about Ashley. In my right mind, I would've known I didn't want to hear about any of Ashley's dirty little secrets. But in this one moment, I couldn't see. _

"_Wait here, Ashley." _

"_Wait – what?" The bed creaked as her weight left it. _

"_Stay here." _

"_But –"_

_The door slammed behind me, in her face. In a flash of clarity, I paused and waited to hear her open it again, but it never happened. Then I didn't even stop to wonder why._

_The blonde girl was still in the underground parking, sandwiched between muscle cars and Ferraris. Ashley probably thought she was long gone, but I saw her earlier when I buzzed in, near Ashley's beloved Cayenne. _

_I even thought she was pretty. _

_She had moved to stand between the two cars now, Ashley's Cayenne and Carerra. There was something she was twirling in her hands – keys. She had a bag near her feet, Ashley's things. _

"_Hard choice?" _

_She turned to face me blankly, too stoic for what she was about to do - steal from my best friend. _

"_You're the girl from the pictures," she stated plainly. _

_I frowned, only remembering Ashley having one frame of us on her beside table._

"_So?" _

"_Her best friend." The girl looked down, still twirling the keys. "With benefits?" _

"_What? No!" _

"_In denial, huh?" The blonde eyed our reflections in the tinted driver's window and smirked. "I get that. I wouldn't want to be more with a girl like Ashley? One time couldn't be enough. Those hands and God, she can…" _

"_Stop it!" I demanded, hands clenched at my side in a perfect picture of futility. " She's not a piece of meat." _

"_I'd be surprised." The girl ran a finger idly along the side of the Cayenne and I felt nauseous. _

"_What would you know?" _

"_More than you know." She shot me a quick, indecipherable look. "Did you know she and I were a couple last year? She'd always make sure I left before you got here. I never stopped hearing about you, and the only time I ever saw her was in bed. You can guess why we didn't work out. And I still see her at the club sometimes. I hear she leaves with a guy or girl every night, they come back with their hearts broken, you know? Guess she doesn't do more than one night anymore." _

_I could feel my jaw slacken. _

"_She takes things from people," the blonde mused quietly, more as if she meant to say it in her head. _

"_What is that supposed to mean?" _

_She shrugged me off. "You must be pretty special." _

"_I'm not," I replied stiffly, and asked although I knew the answer wasn't something I would want to hear. "Why did she take you back last night?" _

"_She didn't realize who I was until this morning."_

_That's how far she got with her flippant tone before my fist found her jaw. But this definitely wasn't a movie, and I wasn't the prince in some twisted fairytale. She grimaced, I doubled over squeezing my knuckles. The throbbing in my hand didn't stop even as she stopped rubbing her jaw, and I realized that I couldn't do anything to her if I wanted to. _

_I wasn't like Ashley. Wasn't athletic, wasn't brave, wasn't a fighter. It wasn't my duty, running blindly after this girl that had hurt Ashley on white horse I couldn't ride. It was something Ashley would and could do, not me. I was still, up till now, the gullible best friend with kind words and open arms._

_That was what I was thinking when the girl swung her fist in retaliation, when my head jerked back and the dimly lit lot exploded with colour. It was the first time I'd ever been punched. She still had the keys in her hand, and they'd dug into my cheek like brass knuckles. Unlike her, I was instantaneously bent over and cupping my face, my fingers warm and crimson. _

_She watched me warily, crouched over with my hands against my face. _"_I still love her, you know, and I wasn't trying to take advantage of her. I thought I could take whatever she took from me back. But it's not going to happen." She probably thought I was pathetic. "I know Ashley's amazing. She just doesn't know what she does to people. She's not just one night. "_

_Those were exact same words I told Ashley, and I had meant them. This girl said them, she had meant them, and I wanted to believe she was wrong._

_I finally understood who Ashley really was in a badly lit parking lot with a girl that professed to love her. Why I was always the one she had to go after the boys with threats for, the cheerleaders she had to corner in the locker room for me. _

_She was the fascinating, heart-breaking, brooding boy to them. The cheerleader with all the words and beauty and nothing else offer. _

_And I had to accept the reason was maybe me._

"_You'll be fine." The girl dropped the keys, letting them jingle on the concrete flooring with certain resignation. "But I wouldn't have so much faith in her." _

_Then she was gone, leaving me with the keys on the floor, a bag of Ashley's things, and cupping a bleeding face. _

_That was all it took, ten minutes. Ten minutes to forego our Sunday breakfast for the first time, go a day without answering her calls once, see a Monday we wouldn't be laughing over the inside jokes that had highlighted the weekend. _

_Just ten minutes I wished never happened. _

_I rang Ashley's doorbell. Her keys and things were on her doorstep, and I was on my way home with a dizzy head that had nothing to do with bloody faces._

* * *

I remember this girl Ashley used to know. I met her in a car park, and I remember her when I see the miniscule scar right below my cheekbone.

She was blonde, blue eyed, almost like me. Except she was taller, more slender, fuller in the front, tanner, and looked she belonged on a catwalk.

I understand how I could have looked to her. Her with her shorter hair and more mature features, me with my long hair and easy blush, my cherry chapstick and her blood-red lipstick, my shuffling walk and her swinging hips.

Yet the way she looked at me was jealously. She talked to me as if we were on the same level, as if she knew me too. I didn't understand then - that one Ashley Davies would make me just like her.

Except she's probably not in Ashley's apartment in West Hollywood at the moment, balled under the duvet on Ashley's faux leather couch and hoping that opening door is just a dream.

"Nice try, Spencer. I know you well en… I know you're not sleeping."

She continues when I sit up. "Do you want a shower or anything? Anything you need… I can put those in the wash." She pointed at what I was wearing, a blouse that used to be white and black slacks so long they dragged on the ground.

"I got you something warm," she offers a mug of weak tea and I accept, noticing the way our fingers readily strain to not touch.

She perches on the edge of the coffee table, her back as straight as mine. "Thanks for coming back with me."

"I should be thanking you," I tell her quietly. "If it weren't for you, I'd be sleeping on my jacket in..."

"Spencer." Her tone is gentle, but firm like she doesn't want to hear me talk anymore. "I'm going to get you some sleep clothes."

I watch her leave over the porcelain rim of the mug. She still has that subtle swagger and fluid stride, things about her I've never really forgotten. Little things I can't help noticing about her, like the raise of her eyebrow when she sees me watching the doorway she left through vigilantly.

She reduces me to a child, the way she looks at me as I reach for the sleep shorts and t-shirt she's offering. I think I might refuse to look her in the eye if she keeps with it.

"I'll um, let you get changed. You need anything else?"

I shake my head and stand awkwardly behind the couch after I finish, she comes back a couple minutes later and stops right at the threshold, holding out a hand front of her as if she's looking for support.

Her eyes rake up my body. I feel the blood rush to my face even though I'm cold from not having worn such skimpy clothes in awhile.

"God, you're so… thin." She swallows visibly. "Spencer…"

I have to swallow convulsively too. "Ashley, don't. Please."

* * *

_She saw my face from across the parking lot, and I knew right then I wouldn't be able to pretend the bruise on my face was inconspicuous. _

_Her Porsche disappeared from the student lot and I heard nothing of her until she called in the middle of my afternoon class. As soon as she heard the professor's harsh voice fade and the classroom door closing over the line, she snapped. _

"_You're an idiot." _

"_That says a lot about you," I countered, before I thought it through._

"_What's that supposed to mean?" _

_We were silent for moment, contemplating what exactly it was supposed to mean. _

"_Okay," she conceded over the phone. "What did she tell you?" _

"_Who?" I asked blankly, moving away from the classroom and outside to perch on a bench in front of the school. _

"_Seriously, Spencer?" She sighed. "Do you really think I'll believe that you banged up your face on a door or something?" _

"_This is me you're talking about," I told her lightly, managing to draw a soft, amused sigh over the phone. "So where've you been all day?" _

"_Ava skipped town." _

"_You mean the blonde girl who…" _

"_Who punched you?" She snorted. "Yeah." _

"_I…I wasn't going to say that." _

"_Did you seriously think I wasn't going to find out?" _

"_Not about that." _

_I could hear her suck in a breath for moment, "What did she say to you, Spence?" _

"_Nothing." _

"_Come on now. She got you to punch her, we both know how often that happens," she answered wryly. _

"_Ash, she didn't…" _

_I was cut short by cool fingers on my cheek, just over the bruise. There wasn't enough pressure to hurt, just induce this odd, heady tingling. Whipping around sharply, Ashley met me with an amused smile and sympathetic eyes. _

"_Does it hurt?" She asked, her fingers completely still. _

_I shook my head, and she grabbed my hand before I could bring it down to my lap, bringing the bruised knuckles up to her eyes. _

_"You sure?" _

_"Ashley." _

_Her short-lived grin faded and she came around the bench to bend down in front of me, hands on my knees, looking up at me in a manner that made me prone to babbling, or worse, mute. "What did she say to you, Spence?" _

"_I don't…" _

"_Tell me?" _

"_It's not…" _

"_Spence!" _

"_She told what she was doing at your place," I relayed in the smallest voice. "That she hasn't been the only one." _

_She sucked in her bottom lip. _

"_Why, Ash?" _

"_I don't want to disgust you - I mean, I don't want you to think your best friend is a whore and a liar..." _

"_Stop." I interrupted shrilly, hands halfway to my ears. "Why aren't you ever with anyone anymore? Why are you just... one night?" _

"_I just –" She tapped her fingers on my knees nervously, "Well, you can't always be around and when you are… I don't want anything to get in the way. I want to be with you instead of on some lame date and…" _

_The defeat in her voice made me forego the straight answer I was hoping for. "Don't worry about it." _

_She smiled softly at me, glad for the reprieve that was as much mine as hers. _

_It was only because I didn't want to ask her what we were. This connection we shared where there was no line distinguishing friendship from relationship, where she could call in the middle of the night, or claim to own every bit of me and I wouldn't object. I didn't want to know why she looked so relieved right now, what hiding her one night stands from me really meant. _

_And I didn't want to think of the people she hurt, that the best friend I loved like no other wasn't perfect. I didn't want to think of the people that had fallen for her as easily as she changed the sheets on her bed every morning. The people she left and broke after they had shared an unbelievably intimate connection with her. Or one of the people that needed her that she didn't need back. _

_Most of all, I didn't want to know where I belonged in all of it. I didn't want to upset the fine balance that hadn't been there before, toy with the idea of being pushed away. _

_Most of all, I didn't want to be one of them. _

_So that was the last we ever heard of it._

* * *

"Well, tell me what you need, Spencer! Money, a new apartment, a decent job..." She scowled and added softly, "and I can get it for you."

"Ashley, can we just not talk about this right now?"

A beat of silence later, she sets her jaw. Her lips twitch at the sight of my reflexively wringing hands that I hurry to hide and sighs gustily. "The guest room's over there."

"Night, Spencer."

"Night," I mumble. The air feels cold against my skin as I walk away, or maybe it's just her eyes on me.

It's all forgotten I close the door and climb blindly into the bed. The mattress sinks and the sheets smell like fabric softer, silk against my legs.

It's heaven like I've never known.

Until it's not, the room is glaringly bright and Ashley's storming into the room looking fit to kill. She closes the door behind her with a loud bang that means I can't pretend to be asleep, hardly in the right mind to look the least bit apologetic.

"Spencer, I called your house."

I hardly dare to move. The better part of me knows this has been a long time coming, but that part of me decided to be here.

"Why doesn't the number work anymore?"

And every part of me wishes that it isn't true what Ashley wants, she always gets from me.

"_I don't…" _

"_Tell me?" _

"_It's not…" _

"_Spence!" _


	7. 7

How is love affiliated with the heart? I don't understand it either, how a muscle that sometimes stops pumping blood has enough left over to love. Maybe I've known love, the one that travels in veins and arteries, that comes and goes through the walls of the heart so easily.

There was one other thing that used to come and go so naturally. I welcomed it, and even if I hadn't, she would have come irregardless. And when she's in there, she catches me in that precipice between fight and flight, halting all sentient thought and committing me to the wanton desires of a beating muscle.

After her words, I'm stonewalled up here and there's no signal from down there. I've always had one answer.

She knows it. "Don't run."

"I don't have anywhere to run to."

Ashley pins me a lengthy, appraising look. "If that night the cops had to drag you out of the water wasn't you trying to run…"

"Do you really have to bring that up again?"

"We're not… it's not grade school anymore Spencer. You have to deal with the things you do." She squeezes her fingers into a fist, eyes misplaced in a burst of emotion. Her voice is laced with bitterness, her syllables are serrated. "Don't tell me you didn't know what you were in for the moment you hit the water. Don't tell me you knew what you were doing either, because clearly, you didn't!"

"What are you trying say?" I feel the sudden burst of anger flare on my cheeks. "That I'm crazy? That I need help? Well Ash, it seems like I have _been _for a while, until you decided to turn around and walk back into my life like you damn well never left and sort me out. What happened to dealing with the things you did? Is helping me now supposed to be some sort of consolation for you?"

Sealed with an unfamiliar contempt, her words take a moment longer to process. "You need me."

In that second, I know all our reserve is gone. Our forays are blind, blindly seeking out the softest and sorest spots. Maybe that's all I'm good for right now. "I _needed_ you. I needed you when you left. And when dad found out about Ben. When Paula left. When my family fell apart; when I fell apart. When I called you over and over and no one answered. Look how that turned out. Don't you think I learned my lesson already? Do you really think I'm going to let you fool me twice?"

And her eyes say I've won. It doesn't feel good anymore, like a cathartic cry that won't stop late into the night.

"I–I'm not asking you to need me," she says in dulcet tones, "I just want to help you. Not because it's any consolation to me – God, seeing you like this... But because we used to be friends, and maybe we're not anymore, but because we used to be, and some part of me just wants to see you happy and healthy, like the girl I knew. And if you want to leave, after, fine. But all I ask is you just stay here until I know you're okay. Please. If not for me, for you."

* * *

"_If not for me, for you?" A fifteen year old Ashley begged with her eyes, forehead creased and lips pouted in every too-cute-to-be-denied trick she knew. _

"_I'm still not doing this." _

"_You have no idea what you're missing out on. Come on, we went all the way to the beach…" _

_Her eyes flickered away, the sun catching in her irises just right, and I knew I was doomed. _

"_Well, you're still doing it." Her voice hiccuped at the end of her sentence in her excitement as she knocked me backwards as one arm came under my knees, and the other wrapped around my back._

_I felt myself leave the ground, bridal style, almost effortlessly. I had no time to process her arm around my bare back and her unclothed stomach squashed against my left hip as she covered the last few feet of hot sand and I hit freezing water, my arms coming up instinctively to stop my falling motion. _

_She laughed as I broke the surface, shivering. _

_I bit my lip, caught the tang of salt, and flicked up the water with both hands, aiming for her face. _

_She spluttered. "Whoa, Spence. Chill."_

"_So chill you wouldn't believe it." I gave her my best I'm-up-to-no-good smile and she gave me one back. _

_That was the way Glen used to hold me down, wrists held together in an iron grip. But when Ashley did it, slender fingers almost reaching all the away around both my wrists, her hand coming around to my lower back to press me against her to contain my squirming, it made me wish she would and would never let go simultaneously. _

"_Ugh, Ash. Let go." _

"_Are you going to play nice?" Her breath brushed my ear, dripping with mirth. _

_I knew she felt my breath stutter, my stomach seizing, the rough of the goosebumps all over my skin. But only I felt the blind panic, the odd flipping and flopping in my abdomen. Only one thought occurred. "Let go of me!" _

"_Spence…" She stepped back, set back by my panicked tone. "Spence, what's wrong?" _

"_It's really cold." Covering my tracks, like always. She had to know. _

"_Wussy." She grinned, prompting a smile from me. "Let's grab our towels, c'mon." _

* * *

"I'm never going to be the girl you knew." My mouth spits venom, my eyes beg her to understand.

She looks down, almost contrite. "I know."

I pick up fallen covers, discarded when I half-fell, half-jumped out of bed at Ashley's entrance. With our eye-contact broken, I attempt another blind foray, hoping she remembers. "But I'm still doing it."

I hardly dare to look. But even from my peripheral, I see her face light up like no other. "You did come all the way here."

It works. I smile. She smiles, and her voice is sure when she says, "So, you sleep okay?"

"Perfect."

The phone rings in the midst of another awkward silence. She starts moving away, stopping momentarily to speak to me. "I left clothes in the closet last night and food in the kitchen. Just uh, help yourself."

She's gone and I dress quickly, smiling when the clothes are almost identical to the ones I came in last night, only they're hers.

I walk into the kitchen to her perched on the counter, phone to her ear. "Just cancel it, okay? I have visitor. No, she can't wait."

She heaves an exasperated sigh. "You can't be serious."

I feel as if I'm moving through a series of out-of-body, awkward moments.

"Does my manager know you're being an ass?"

I turn and look out the loft-sized window, hiding a smile. Entranced, I miss the rest of her conversation until the slam of the phone back into the charger.

"Sorry about that."

I turn around, raising a teasing eyebrow although my face is apathetic. "Don't you have places to go?"

Ashley smiles, the bridge of her nose creasing. "I can just stay here. It's not the first time I've never shown up for a press conference."

"I thought your bad-influence days were over."

"Well, I hope they are." She smiles ruefully at me. "Coffee on the counter."

She doesn't make a move, and the coffee machine is right next to her. The proximity will be awkward, but it's been a long time since the luxury of coffee. I approach her warily, and she nudges an empty cup out of a stack and towards me.

I'm right next to her when she says, "I didn't know how you liked yours."

"Still the same." My arm brushes her leg as I reach for the sugar.

"Oh. Figures."

Unable to read her tone of voice, I look up. But she's looking down into her coffee.

"Seriously, you don't have to stay here. You should go."

"You're a visitor, and I have never left a visitor alone in my house."

"Have I ever been a visitor in your house?"

She pauses, eyes wide as she peruses mine. "No. No you haven't." Then she's across the room, scrounging in the closet for heels.

Maybe she's decided a little distance would be good for us. Or maybe just me. Maybe she still doesn't want to leave me here. Maybe I don't want to be left alone here. But all of those things just float through the uncertainty in our minds as I watch her staring wistfully at the door, purse halfway to her shoulder.

"My number is in the notebook by the phone," she adds. "And it's multi-purpose. Emergencies, pizza, dry-cleaning…"

I can't help but laugh. Just as shocked as she is, her eyes go from dinner-plate wide to hooded with an undeniable sparkle right in the centre – she looks like she wants to say something, but doesn't comment.

Her heels click across laminated wood. "I'll be back by noon." Pausing stiffly with the door halfway open, she turns back to look at me. "I'll see you?"

"Bye." I wave limply at her back. She's asking me to promise in an unfamiliar, subtle way, and it's not enough a confirmation. I know she doesn't want to leave now, more than ever, but we're too fragile. I know she's still the same Ashley, brazen and impulsive. But she doesn't turn back.

The apartment is quiet. It itself amazing, breathing room I'm not used to. I sit down at the counter, feeling out of place, coffee on my lips, chin in my palm. The ticking of her wall clock sifts through the silence. The answering machine beeps.

"Hey, Ash. I got what you needed. Call me back." The voice is female.

Almost by instinct I look at the recorded message number – only it's a hundred and one. She's telling me trusts me not to run by leaving, but why does it feel like a losing battle?


	8. 8

**a/n: Reading or reviewing, you have my gratitude. **

**

* * *

**

"You're still here."

"Did you really think I'd leave?"

The wordless nature of her response sends a jolt of emotion lancing through me. Somewhere along the road, it's not just my trust she's lost.

Turning away from the window with an automatic smile, my eyes adjust to the dimmer light of the room and catch her return smile before she turns away to toss her purse onto the couch.

I notice she has a cardboard box sitting on her hip, a corner of it digging into her waist and dimpling the fabric of her shirt.

"What's in the box?"

It's hefted into my lap. "It's all yours." She steps back, arms crossing mutely.

I frown, hooking a finger around one of the top flaps and leaning over. A few folded shirts, a stack of documents, a photo album. All that's left of a stretch of time I called life.

"That's all?"

"That's all I could get back."

My chin drops. There wasn't much to begin with. And what I began with I have no attachment to, nor any fondness for. I resent that now I've been here, my memories of dank halls and empty apartments, slippery steps and daunting parking lots are permeated with nausea. Hating where I've been. Where Ashley's eyes have been and seen me. Because as real as my life was, Ashley's presence opens my eyes to another reality of could-have-been's and what-should-be's.

"Hey, space cadet," she interrupts my thoughts lightly, with some tentativeness, holding out another box that seems to have materialized from nowhere.

I look inside. Clothes, in styles I used to wear – and still do, tags still attached. "Clothes? But…"

"Don't be daft. What you have won't even last you a week. Here, I had to guess your size but I've gotten pretty good at it. Try them on and I'll take back whatever you don't like or doesn't fit. You're welcome."

I rub the edge of a shirt between my fingers and thumb absently. "Thank you," belatedly aware my voice has a dropped an octave. And that a girl I've despised and mourned and missed has shown me more kindness than I could have ever foreseen.

What is an already awkward moment explodes with tension as she takes the reins in a semblance of control. "Come on, time's a'wastin. We should get those tags off; I left my scissors somewhere…"

* * *

_The first time I went shopping with Ashley, we were young enough to act out and get away with it, and old enough to not look out of place in the make-up aisle. Certainly, young enough to walk into a changing room together with armfuls of dresses and get off with a glare. _

"_So, you know, when you get this…" I cut off with a slight noise of disapproval as the coltish brunette wiggled. "It's going to catch your skin if you keep twitching, Ash. Stay still." _

"_I can't help it!" Bubbled through red lips, tribute to the three pure-sugar iced cappuccinos that, according to her, I was liable for. "You could have stopped me. I was a monster!" She dragged her voice out into a distinctive, endearing whine. _

"_Self-control, Ash," I said in a tone that I knew would further aggravate her, and tugged mercilessly on the cold zipper at her backside. "As I was saying, it would be practical not to toss this on the floor after you've coughed up a hundred bucks for it." I pictured her room again, draped with clothes, holding back a laugh at the recollection of a pair of jeans she had stepped out of left upright on the floor._

"_It's just a dress," she groaned when her next jitter found the zipper scoring her skin._

"_I told…" _

"_Uh uh. You don't get to say that." She whipped around, eyes narrowed, lips pursed. _

_My heart dropped and I had the distinctive feeling my insides were dispersing, creating a deeper and darker void for the muscle to fall into. My eyes had made the unavoidable drop from her face to the bronzed skin over the gentle swell of her collarbone, the trigonal notch that led right down to the low neckline of the dress. Those eyes wouldn't stop despite my slipping control, chasing the contours of the creamy fabric over her stomach and hips as it made its svelte way down her thighs and finally fanning out in a series of frills. _

_I realized, belatedly, that a smirk was blossoming on her face._

"_T-that this dress looks amazing on you?" I backtracked unconvincingly, mortified at the sensation of a powerful blush. _

"_I wasn't finished," she paused, unable to contain a pompous grin. "You don't get to say that just once." _

"_Look who's fishing." _

_She winked emphatically. "Don't be sad I got this dress first." Was she mistaken or helping me skulk back behind the line, repair the walls, reassemble my resolve? Which was I supposed to hope for? _

"_Oh Ash, that colour would only look good on you." _

"_Come again?" _

_I laughed, falling comfortably back into our effortless banter. The previous indignity faded so easily from my mind in a way only Ashley could facilitate. _

_

* * *

_

I finger a button on the pinstripe blouse, cooling my fingers. The clothes in that box are more than I could have ever asked for. It's only after this unforeseen act of kindness from Ashley and having chanced on a moment of peace and quiet I start my attempt to right myself somehow.

Bemused, the knock on the closed door comes escapes my notice.

"Spencer… Spencer? Yoo hoo."

Unbidden, a smile comes to my lips. "Come in."

A tousled head of loose curls comes around the door, sweetened with a familiar rakish grin. "Hey. Lookin' good."

I look down self-consciously. "Thanks."

"Anything you want me to take back?"

"No but… now? You just got back."

She sighs, coming fully around the door. I notice she's changed from her usual, provocatively revealing clothing to well-fitted slacks and a navy blue blouse, a blazer draped over one arm.

It's this image of a grown-up Ashley, wearing something a teenaged Ashley would have never been caught dead in, even if by necessity, that bolsters the depth of her transformation.

"I know," she hisses out, restlessly tugging down her blouse. "I just got a call. Emergency meeting with the bigwigs. I'm so sorry Spencer, I wanted to…"

"It's fine. You shouldn't have to drop anything for me," I reinforce my words with a beam. "And I think playing hooky is thing of the past."

"If you say so," she grins genuinely, albeit archly. "So I'm going to go, help yourself to anything. I'll see you when I get back."

A statement, not a question.

"Yeah," filtering all the uncertainty out of my voice the best I can.

She eyes me for a long moment. "'Kay."

I watch her leave, eyes glued to the curve of her back the blouse so clearly underscores. Then folding a few tops blindly, ears trained on the sounds of her heels all over the apartment, and finally the front door closing and a key in the lock.

So Ashley's off to work and I'm left to stew in emotions set to fester until they boil over. No distractions and no respite.

Only one thought occurs. I've to escape before the gravity of this situation, my unmanageable emotions and thoughts swallow me whole.

Grabbing the phone, I punch in number by heart. As a male voice answers, I look for a scrap of paper and leave a note with little thought for what comes later.

* * *

_It hadn't been that long since I found out about Ashley's nightly visitors. I'd done my best to push it away – I didn't know how I was supposed to feel about it, and why I felt and what exactly these things were whenever I thought of it. I'd examined and re-examined my feelings time and again, but I was frankly reminded of that dizzying and sensation of stepping into unfamiliar territory. _

_And it was one sensation I couldn't quite seem to walk away from, because for every step back, the unknown seemed to move forward. _

_That was what came of an early morning stroll into Ashley's apartment. _

"_Hey Ash, rise and…" My voice was light when I turned the knob, and then it wasn't there at all. _

_There was a dirty blonde head attached to petite shoulders that narrowed into an exposed back somewhere in the sea of covers. And Ashley, whose eyes sprang open as she moved with alarming speed, hands darting to crinkled linen already covering her chest. There was a beautiful pink flush to her face, accentuated on her cheekbones where the sun through the curtains hadn't honeyed her skin. _

_It was an image that would chew me up inside and out for a long time to come. _

"_Get out." _

_It was the first time she had ever said those words to me, but she didn't have to tell me twice. I gaped long enough to see something in her eyes flicker. Then I couldn't get out fast enough, not even bothering to lock the door on my way out as I fumbled down the stairs was down the street with no place to go but no mind to care. _

_Then I was afraid. So thoroughly scared, so incredibly sorry a Sunday morning meant to be a refuge for friends had been so cruelly ripped from us. _

"_Spence! Spence, wait." _

_I shut my eyes, willing some sort of courage from some place inside to guide my failing limbs. _

"_Spencer. You…" _

_She had the take-out I left on the kitchen counter in her hand, between us like an olive branch. I made no move to take it. _

"_I got it for you. It's breakfast," I told her softly, honestly, knowing it was doubling this tension, trebling her guilt. _

_She smiled, and it was heartbreaking. "I'm sorry, Spence… she was supposed to be gone in the morning." _

"_Oh." I choked out, not sure what to say, or what I felt. Just that it was overwhelming, and I repressed the urge to flee far, far away from here until I knew. _

"_I'm so sorry." _

"_Ash…" _

"_I feel sick." _

"_Ashley." A deep breath later, I was in front of her, hands lifting to cup her face and half-backing down as last minute in a fit of bashfulness that had my fingertips along her jaw._

"_Why would you feel sick?" _

_She looked back at me gingerly. "I don't know… I didn't know how you would react." _

"_What you do in the privacy in your own home has nothing to do with me." _

"_But you're…" _

"_Different? I thought you didn't answer to anyone." _

"_Things change," there was no accompanying smile. _

_I dropped one hand, not one babbling reply on my lips. The fingers of the remaining hand curled so a solitary thumb traced down to her chin. _

_She reached up and took my hand. "Are you coming up?" She looked down, rubbing her thumb over my palm. "She's leaving." _

"_I…" I hesitated, not sure how to word my thoughts. The thought of hurting Ashley… and the thought of stepping back into a place that in my mind and in my heart, was just between us, made my chest clench forcefully. I knew the truth, but seeing it was blow to the face. "I don't think I can, at least not today." _

_She gave me a demoralizing, crooked attempt at a smile, and let me go. "I understand." _

_I left her on the sidewalk in her mismatched outfit and bare feet, clutching a brown paper bag. _

_And all I wanted to do was turn back on gather her out of another girl's arms and into my own. _

* * *

It rides low on my back, slipping in between my new blouse and slacks, tickling the skin underneath.

I'm reaching back to free the apron strings from it's giant knot when someone gets there before me. I crane my head, almost bending my head backwards to catch a glimpse of black tresses and green eyes. "Thanks."

Sabrina gives me a sympathetic grin. "Let me retie that for you, hon." She moves behind me, pushing my hand aside lightly as she takes the ties into her hands.

"So where've you been?"

"Moving," I answer swiftly. "A little strange how fast Boss let me off the hook, though?"

"Hey, now. You're the reason we have so many regulars."

I scoff, shake my head, and am proven yet again ineffectual in keeping the blush at bay. "Who else would work in this dump for minimum wage?"

She snorts sympathetically. "We're all just making a living, Spence, but…" She leans in, pretending to readjust my collar. "He tried to find someone else, but no one would take the job. You should've seen him when he realized it was you on the phone."

I nod wordlessly. Not many people in these parts pay off their debts and make a living the legal way. I wish I didn't know what ways in particular are easier than waiting tables, and how strong the draw was to something I swore on my heart and soul that I'd never go to for money before Ashley unknowingly jerked me back.

The bell over the door jangles and Sabrina disappears into the kitchens. I watch a shadow fall over the counter as the customer sits at a stool. Sliding a menu over the counter without looking up, I continue wiping down the sink until the stranger speaks with a whiskey-soaked voice.

"Strawberry milkshakes any good?"

I look up jerkily, startled.

Ashley's face is decidedly placid, revealing nothing. Her eyes are another thing in itself, all mottled golds and dusky browns blistering with an inner storm.

"As good as I can make them," I reply quietly, knowing all too well what's next. The girl this morning so set on getting her life back her way is gone, and I'm back to questions with no answers.

"One of those, then. Please."

I nod, scouring my mind for something to say. She watches my suddenly fumbling movements, and I have to repress a tremor at the intensity of the gaze I won't meet.

"Shouldn't you, ah, be at work?" I venture after long moments, punctuating it with the placement of the drink in front of Ashley.

She ignores my question completely, but it seems to set off the beginnings of whatever is behind those eyes. "What are you doing back here?"

"Making a living."

"You're living with me – you don't and shouldn't have to come here," her voice is rough and forceful, everything short of physically poking me in the chest to demonstrate her point.

I look up, galvanized by a sudden rush of bitterness. "I'm staying with you. And after? Where do I go? What do I do? Outside of your bubble, this is how some of us live. You don't have to like it, Ashley. But how you feel doesn't make a difference to me."

She doesn't answer, and I shy away form her glare to move clumsily from the counter and down the aisle, trained on a signaling customer in the back.

And I'm suddenly aware her eyes are watching when I feel the almost gentle caress of air against the strip of exposed skin on the small of my back before a hand descends and brusquely locks around my waist, plunging me unceremoniously into a stranger's jean-clad lap.

Cigarette smoke. Alcohol and dirty clothes.

"Hey Spencer, how much for a few minutes in the alley?"

A gruff voice, harbouring a crude comment no doubt, a comment I don't comprehend until I'm far away. I jerk away from the intrusive touch and scurry to the back room none-too-subtly, turning my face away as I flee, shrouding my profile in a curtain of blonde, choking back the burn of bile and tears. The door closes behind me, and I lean up against the door, lolling my head back as a mortified heat rushes up my body.

"This is a diner, not a brothel. Get out!" Sabrina's voice is muted through the door.

I've gotten my head wrapped around the fact this comes with the job, but Ashley's presence – like it always has, is wreaking havoc, and suddenly I'm coming undone.

There's the voice again, protesting. A scuffle, the door bell ringing. And there's the quiet. Thorough and dense, every breath tortuous and forced as if the air itself knows the meaning of an awkward silence.

Sabrina's voice comes through the door. She's on the other side now. "Spence?"

Pressing the back of a cold hand to my cheek to test the waters, I open the door. She pats my elbow awkwardly, and stands beside me. I'm first to move back to the counter. It happens to both of us, and she always takes a little better than me, knowing which customers to walk swooping arcs around. But it's always back to work, ready or not.

"Hey, you." Ashley's persuasive tone breaks the silence. We both turn towards her.

"Can I borrow Spencer for a moment? We need to talk. " A fifty dollar bill floats onto the counter, and I know I've just been bought.

"Why not."

Ashley grabs my wrist, the force of it shocking me and she's managed to drag me halfway to her car parked in the lot before I gather my wits enough to wrench free.

"What do you think you're doing?" I say to her back.

"Are you used to being treated like crap? Is that it?"

"It's the same thing, just with a different face."

She whips around, livid. "Different faces don't make being fondled at work alright!"

"Jesus, how many ways is there to degrade a person? One way, Ashley. It doesn't matter how you do it, it feels the same. It always feels the same." I hadn't wanted to be so reproachful, to turn the conversation around on her, but it's out before I realize.

"Are we done?" Comes my grating tone. I twist myself around, preparing to walk back to the diner when her fingers curl around my wrist again.

"You're not going back there. Not after they let you be bought off by a stranger for fifty fucking dollars," she snarls.

I twist my arm free once more with a jerk of my elbow, but I don't leave, turning back to her. "Who else is going to take a girl barely out of high school, looking like she's been living of the streets?" I pause. "And Sabrina's a good person. The only thing that makes her like most people in these parts, is that she would sell her soul to live like you do."

"Do all your _friends _think you're worth fifty bucks too?"

"Are you telling me to choose my friends a little more carefully? 'Cause I think I've learned that lesson a bit better than you."

She laughs dryly, sneering at the brick wall behind me. "Looks like we've come full circle, huh? It's all my fault, isn't it?"

"Never said that."

"You don't have to say it. I know what you think."

I meet her eyes, locked in the deadly dance. Our emotions are boiling over, shattering the floodgates, breaking the banks. "What makes you think you still know me, Ashley?"

"You would never sell your soul. Not for anything," she shakes her head with total conviction.

And I leer at her, hovering over the win. "You heard Sabrina. The bit about the brothel. How do you think that man knew my name?"

I've got her, now. Her eyes are zeroed on me, sneer quickly fading.

"Where did you think I got the money to buy a place? To make a life for me on my own?" I lash out, the truth mangled in those ugly words.

She steps back, eyes wide, what she's feeling registering in her eyes and face.

"You wouldn't."

"'Cause the Spencer you knew would never stoop so _low_?"

All I can do is watch, that breath hitching under the magnitude of feeling, there's a film that comes over her eyes, and then she's lost to me. Growling in retaliation, the entire length of her body pinions me as she slams me back into the wall, forearm tight against my sternum. It doesn't hurt, but the impact is enough to knock out my breath and my fight.

Her face is next to mine, mouth next to my ear. "You wouldn't whore yourself out for a few cheap dollars."

"Ashle – "

"You wouldn't, Spence."

I'm silent, stunned and frightened. I can't look at anything but the shapes and figures over her shoulder, can't register anything but her body against mine. She shoves me back again, even though I'm immobilized with the brick wall at my back and Ashley's body, chest to toe, against my front.

"Tell me. Tell me you wouldn't."

I recover quickly enough to shake my head, and at her proximity, she feels it. I don't know how she knew. "I spent some time at a brothel, Ashley. I was out on the streets… and I helped out one of the girls and they returned the favour. They gave me somewhere to live, three square meals. They also gave me a opportunity, but…"

The pressure eases as she moves back slightly to look me in the face. Her eyes are piercing, so acutely expressive I lose track of my breathing. Just because of that devastated, achingly feral look in her eyes, like none I've ever seen.

"But I never… I'm a virgin."

She holds my gaze for one more wordless moment before slowly stepping back. I'm slumped against the wall, matching her fast pants breath for breath.

Turning away from me tremulously, she breaks eye contact. Noiselessly sinking to sit on the curb, bowing her head into her hands.

And swallowing back the unexpected, incendiary bite of grief in my throat, rather than the shame and ire I was expecting, I will my knees not to buckle. Then I look away from that impossibly still figure, to where the streetlight shines a vigil over us with a gilded light, and where we're traveling in endless circles.


	9. 9

She knows I know she can see me looking at her. She's staring straight ahead through the windshield, starting the car and saying nothing. Amber lights outside are illuminating her face for split seconds, then gone through the backseat as we pass. There are entire conversations in every glance she flicks at me. Grief and fatigue are a thin, tenuous film on my skin. My eyes are raw.

I don't know what to do. I don't know how to begin to talk about tonight, to make sense of it. And I have to the fight the urge to hide, and never bring this up again. Because that would make everything feel so simple, and so easy. Because in moments like these, leaving it to fester seems infinitely easier than addressing the issue. My mind wanders, and I start thinking that maybe in the larger scheme of things, no one would care if we never talked to each other again. That nothing would happen if I stayed or if I ran. I almost believe, for a moment, that I can.

The car stops and we react. A key turns to an unlit apartment, purses dropped and collars loosened. Somewhere in the dark, she touches my back. I feel five points trail down the fabric, loosening bits of clinging dirt and crumbling brick. I don't flinch, and Ashley seems to breathe a sigh of relief, of regret maybe.

"We need to talk," she says, but she's already turning, walking away.

"I know," I murmur, but we're already scattering ourselves into this dark place, waiting and hiding and mourning, because tonight, it's easier to believe we can forgive and forget.

-

It's only the thud of a door against frame and a key turning that encourages me to finally leave the guest bedroom. Yet the apartment isn't as empty as I wished it would be, despite the going-out noises. Ashley sits at the counter, clear as day. Somewhere, separated by walls, is a visitor with loud shoes. We look at each other, and she's the first to look away, crossing then uncrossing her arms. It's too late to wish I had never left the bedroom.

"Ash, stop being so suspiciously quiet," a voice calls out, a greeting reserved for a close friend. "You better not still be in bed. Have you seen my sweater, the red one? I've been turning my place upside down looking for it."

I don't miss Ashley slipping me a sideways glance, as the visitor is frozen in the doorway. Or, maybe, it's just my mind bringing a rush of vague memories to the forefront of my mind from the simple sight of her.

"Spence? Is that you?"

I smile broadly, overcompensating. "Kyla."

"Oh, you. Come here." Her voice is quiet, belying just how much she knows. But she shows no surprise, asks no questions, like nothing's changed. Just her arms stretched out for a hug.

"You've shrunk," she comments brightly, slinging her arm loosely around my shoulder.

"She's lost weight."

I look down at the parquet, disconcerted. Kyla doesn't appear to react, other than turn her head to look at Ashley. I don't risk looking up to see what emotions are playing out on their faces. What kind of messages they're exchanging with their shared glance, for siblings alone.

Kyla squeezes me lightly, then lets go. "Talk to me for a second, Ash."

They disappear down the hall and it's not long before I'm hearing raised voices. There's a squirming feeling in my chest, and I imagine it's one of a trapped animal.

Voices filter back to me, coherent now that they're walking back down the hall towards me. "You forgot? I can't believe you!"

"I've been busy, as if that's not very, very clear."

"It's been planned for months, God damn it. Don't mess this up now, Ash. Don't mess us up."

"I know..."

"We can't back out now. Not today."

"There are just some things I would rather do."

"Look..." Kyla's voice lowers, tapering off into an unintelligible murmur.

They round the corner into the kitchen, looking equal parts exasperated and amused.

"Hey Spence, you probably don't want to hear this and it might you uncomfortable, you probably already are, but--"

"We were going to throw a surprise party for Kyla's uh, friend tonight." Ashley's eyes are fixed on me, and I know even the most miniscule of reactions will register.

"Yeah, we planned ahead for months--" Kyla stops and raises her eyebrows, turning to slap Ashley's arm with an open palm. "Wait, were? You mean we are."

"We are." Ashley repeats, shrugging, smiling at me.

And some part of me, maybe not so surprisingly, doesn't find it hard to dredge up one to give back.

-

"_Ashley..." _

_I slid a hand down to the end of a lock of my hair, brushing her cheek with it. _

"_Wake up." _

_Prodding her shoulder, tugging at the sheets, jumping on the bed. Every attempt I made was hopeless. _

"_How shall I ever wake the dead?" I rolled my eyes, certain she would never see it. _

_She let out a large, uncharacteristic explosion of a snore, rolling over onto her back, her arm choosing to land, forcefully, on my thigh. I jumped back, shocked initially, irritated finally. _

"_Fine, okay. No more nice girl." I jumped on her, settling on straddling her hips, and grabbed her cheeks. _

_And when I was just about to make a photogenic face with my hands, she bucked hard, tossing me sideways, reversing our positions. _

"_Alright, Spence," she looked down at me, wide awake, a cruel edge to her smile, hands on my cheeks. "We can start with the fish face, and move onto less popular ones. Good idea?" _

_I felt my face give under her hands. _

"_Uncle! Uncle, uncle, uncle," I repeated quickly, in case the words from my misshaped mouth did not reach her ears. _

"_You sure?" She let my face return to normal, patting my cheeks. Every part to her expression was fine-tuned to one of thorough enjoyment. _

"_Yes!" _

"_Your loss." She smirked at me, tweaked my nose, and picked up the brown paper bag I had left on the nightstand. "What's this?" _

"_Dad made it. Muffins. Blueberry and chocolate chip, take your pick. I haven't eaten yet, so..." _

"_So...?" She grabbed the first morsel her eyes landed on, crumbs scattering over us. _

"_Hey!" _

"_What? Oh. Sorry." Ashley grinned, her mouth full. "This is good. Really good." _

"_Did you forget you're sitting on someone?" _

"_Who?" She pulled off a look of pure innocence, tore off a piece of muffin, and held it over my lips. "Want some?" _

"_I can't eat flat on my back, moron." _

"_True. None for you, I guess. Unfortunate." _

"_You're heavy, Ash." I lied, hunger getting the better of me. _

_Quickly rolling to the side, her eyebrows were raised—almost comical. "I am? God, I'm sorry. Did I crush you?" _

_She was rubbing my stomach, I was trying to snatch food out of her hands. And we were smiling, like fools. _

_-_

"Ordering in?"

Ashley looks up from the phone book. She cranes her head over her shoulder, at Kyla warped into some odd position, searching the expansive alcohol cabinet, the source of continued jangling of glass against glass.

"Do you want me to cook?"

"Well, no, but..."

"Do you want to cook?"

I can feel an uninhibited smile growing on my face, but meeting Ashley's smirk is enough for the both of us to look away, thankful for Kyla's presence.

Kyla crawls out of the dark space, staring at the two of us. "Would you two stop smiling like that? Jesus." She sighs, dragging a hand over her face. "What are you ordering?"

Ashley points and Kyla grabs the book off the counter. "No you're not. We need vodka and paper plates. Go."

We look at each other, small smiles painting our faces. "Coming?"

"Yeah."

But without Kyla and that brief truce, we're thrust back into our aftermath. That awkward silence, that incessant tension. Something akin to nausea breeds inside me. Last night, in the car.

"I thought we were going to talk."

"I don't know what to say." She's forceful and curt, but her bottom lip is tucked between her teeth.

"Fine. I will. I honestly hoped you'd let me live my life," I'm trying. "You can't keep me cooped up here. I appreciate you helping me—but you've got to let me get back on my feet."

"I know."

I rub my temple, trying hard not to burst out of the starting block into this unsteady ground. "A conversation takes two, Ashley."

"What do you want me to say?" She slams her open palm into the centre of the wheel, out of frustration or because of a deserving driver. Maybe both. I keep my eyes on her, even though she hasn't stopped looking straight ahead. "That I feel like I never want to let you out of my sight after that night I found you? You'll say I have no right to feel that way. That I want to try and fix things? All we ever do is fight. It doesn't matter what you think or what you don't want to think, Spencer. I still care. I do. It may not feel it or look like it, but I do. And I want—I want so much from us... this."

She gestures with her free hand, ineffectually in the air.

"Want what? What could you possibly want that you couldn't have had?"

"I know that!"

"All this time. You had all this time."

"I know."

I look away from her for the first time. Out the window, but never seeing a thing. "There's nothing you can say."

"Yeah." Her voice is barely audible now, and it becomes less one reason to look back at her.

She parks the car, takes the key out of the ignition, and gets out. I stare out the window, even when the anticipated slam doesn't come.

"I'm sorry, Spence, I'm sorry and I know that'll never be enough," she breathes, and shuts the car door.

-

"I remember when you guys had the first real taste of these." Kyla beams, hands gesturing to the translucent bottles, boxes of them, littering every available counter space.

"Yeah, that was..." Ashley drifts off, tilting her head slightly from in front of the sink. She doesn't have eyes on the back of her head, but somehow, she's looking at me.

"You two were fun drunks," Kyla chuckles, turning a bottle over in her palms, oblivious to everything but the past. "Everything anyone did was funny. Ashley cracked these horrible, horrible jokes and you just kept laughing. I thought you were going to wet yourself."

"I remember how you had to answer my phone and explain why there was someone vomiting in the background," I throw in, trying too hard be casual, losing myself too easily into a moment brighter than this.

Ashley turns around, leaning back. "And I came up with this huge lie. I couldn't even remember half of it. A pregnant woman, I think. Then your—Arthur asked what a pregnant woman was doing in my house."

"How drunk were you to suggest that I was?" Kyla laughs, high and contagious.

"Didn't take him long to figure how out of it we were," Ashley concedes.

"Wait." Kyla gives us a wide-eyed look. "Where's my purse?"

Moment successfully drawn to a close, Ashley turns back to the sink. "Bedroom."

We exchange smiles. Those of two friends remembering the same moment. And maybe that's what we are, because there's too much of a history to forget, too much that has happened for us to not remember.

Kyla's voice filters in from another room, over the ring of the phone, "Can someone get that?" And Ashley, hands submerged in a sink of dirty dishes, looks at me and shrugs.

"I got it," I raise my voice and call back, leaning over to collect the handset from the charger.

My greeting is cut short. "Yeah, this is Glen Carlin."

The lengthy pause serves to encourage him. "Uh, some lady left me a couple messages telling me I should call this number and that it's urgent? Look, I know I took my time calling back, but if this is about the fender-bender, I already paid the goddamned thing off."

"Alright, well, whatever. I guess I got the wrong number. Hanging up now."

I put down the phone and meet Ashley's expectant gaze. The smiles are long gone from our faces. I bite down on the side of my mouth, roughly, but I can't stop myself. Like I can't stop her.

"I can't believe you."

She cocks her head. Frowns. Then her eyes widen in understanding. "Wait, wait. Let me explain."

I slump down in my seat, struggling with a multitude of emotions. "You can't explain this."

"I just—I wanted—"

"Damn it, Ashley," I speak over her. Betrayal barks at my heels. Urging me to lash out, to hurt like I have been.

"I just wanted to know."

"To know what? You don't care that I don't want to tell you. You don't care you don't have the right. You want to throw Glen into the mix? Involve my family? Because what Ashley wants, Ashley gets?" I stare at her, hard. "You went behind my back. I can't believe you went behind my back."

"I wanted to make things right. Spencer, I just... I wanted to know how you got here. I couldn't... I can't just accept that this is how things turned out for you." Her voice is stronger now, vehement. "There's no way they could've let you end up like this now. No way."

"I did anyway. You can't let things go, can you? Can't accept me as I am, things as they are. This is me, Ashley. Spencer. You left, time passed, things changed. Don't pick my life apart because you can't get over it. And don't, God, go behind my back. I don't even know why I feel like this. Maybe you've fooled me twice, after all. After everything." I've gotten up somewhere mid-sentence, facing her head on. My hands are clenched by my sides, hers are open in front of her. "And you found Glen's damned number and called him. Went through all that trouble. Was it worth it? Was it?"

"No."

"I should've known." My hands in my face, my heart in my throat.

And just like that, we deflate. She circles me, touching my arm, my back, my elbow. Little light, frightened touches, but her voice is strong. "Don't do that, Spencer. Please. Just do something. Say you hate me. Hit me. Do something. Please, oh God."

A throat clears, Kyla's interruption driving us apart. She's visibly upset, standing at the doorway, watching and hearing for who knows how long.

I watch Ashley's back as she turns to sink. Her entire body twists into something I've never associated with her: defeat. Knuckles white against the black granite counter, shoulders hunched, head bowed. The silence is all-encompassing.

Movement is minimal until guests begin to arrive. Then the din of voices and heavy steps outside and inside is continuous. Ashley reappears to meet them like nothing's wrong.

It's hours later, of mingling and false smiles, of her looking at me and me avoiding her, that I finally, inevitably, meet her eyes. She's draped over a chair, relaxed and confident, knees bent, apart, feet flat on the floor, an arm thrown across the back. Her lips part, teeth flashing in a friendly gesture when someone directs a comment her way, but her eyes are centred on me. Daring me.

-

"_There."_

"_What are you talking about?" _

"_Stop asking me things. Y'know, good things and waiting." She looked over her shoulder, letting out a breathless chuckle. "Walk faster." _

_I stumbled; she grabbed my hand in reinforcement. I made a face. "Your hand is cold!" _

"_Sorry." She glanced over her shoulder again, she shrugged and it hid her expression. Her hand dropped from mine, but I grabbed it in its swinging arc. _

"_It's really dark." _

"_No, no, no. Just wait." _

"_For what?" _

"_You'll know it when you see it." _

"_No, I won't." I was skeptical, but Ashley shot me a grin that dared me. _

"_Believe me." _

"_We have school..." _

_An interruption, in the form of a burst of colour against the sky, followed by a pop. It lit up our faces and the grass and the sky, then the smug grin Ashley shot at me. _

_We stopped, watching, as I contemplated what to say. _

_"Ash, I'm sorry. I was--it's just--" _

"_You were scared." _

"_What? No!"_

_She smirked, slinging her arm around and me and pulling me against her as tight as she could. _

_I laughed and winced. "Stop that!"_

_"Was it worth it?" _

_"Always." _

"_And t__hat's why you keep me around." _

_-_

I step outside, unable to meet her eyes, unable to own up to my harsh words. My heart has taken on a rapid beat all evening, concurrent with pulses of nausea and bouts of dizzying uncertainty. Never have my emotional states taken such a physical toll on my body.

"You okay?"

Ashley again, draping a red cardigan around my shoulders. I feel my back straighten involuntarily, my loosely clasped hands curling around the steel railing. "Are you?"

"Only if you are."

I bite my lip, close my eyes and turn away. A corner of my lips quirk up as I see us as we are now, afraid of our own shadows. "I don't get you," I say.

"I..." She exhales forcefully, finding the right answer. She comes forward in the ample balcony, leaning against the railing, facing the glass doors. Looking in an opposite direction. "I don't get myself, sometimes."

"I don't get why you did it."

"Did--"

"Stop skirting around it, Ashley."

She does, anyway. "I didn't mean what I said, last night. I didn't mean a lot of what I said. I didn't even want to think about how much of this is my fault," she catches her breath for a moment. "I didn't want to think about us. I didn't want you to know about Glen. I wasn't even going to tell him you were here. I just figured he'd never call back after awhile. When I did that, I thought it was worth the risk. I... I wanted to know. And now I know I was wrong—am wrong. Incredibly wrong."

"I hate that you went behind my back. And I did use to blame you," I admit. She breathes in a quick, sharp breath.

"But I don't anymore. It's my fault I couldn't pick myself up after you--whatever you decided to do. I decided where my life went." I end in a decidedly bitter note. Then again, every thought of Ashley always has.

"So if you want to know where we are?" I continue, powerless to look anywhere but the lights of the city. "Back to zero. We went fell so fast from friends, if we were ever there, we can hardly be civil. I don't hate you, Ashley. I hate what you did. I hate why you did it. That makes it so hard for me to—to—"

"Like me," she finishes quietly. I turn my head slightly, to look at her. A side of her mouth turns up in a grim smile, acknowledging a simple truth.

It bubbles up inside of me in that one moment, seeing her, hearing her accepting what it has come to between us. Recognizing what I have been unable to tell her, unwilling to say. Bringing all those months past into a sharp closure, and tears to my eyes. "Just tell me why, Ash. Just tell me why."

"There's never going to be a why enough to answer for what I did, Spencer. Or..." Her voice fails, betraying her. "Enough for you to forgive me."

We turn towards each other simultaneously, my head bowed and hers looking down at me, my own grief reflected in that face. Like so many other similar moments in the past, mingled together into this incomprehensible present.

"I'm sorry, Spence."

"I know."

Her hand trails down my back, fingertips falling unintentionally into the indent of my spine. She gathers me into her tentatively, my head finds that place on the crook of her shoulder and it's almost a physical sensation, a distinguishable sound.

The fight leaving us.


	10. 10

**a note: I am so grateful for your comments. I would say so as much as possible but then I'd sound like a broken record. Some of these are so amazing that one would be enough for me to launch 10 new chapters of this story… hypothetically. **

"A muffin."

"You don't want a muffin."

"No, I want a muffin."

The third person at our table—Kyla—lifts her head from the cradle of her arms, looking at us like bad dates she would like to abandon. "Stop bickering. Hung over here."

Ashley plows on, ignoring the interruption, squinting at me intently. "You're having the cheapest thing on the menu."

"No, it just happens to be the cheapest thing."

"I know you're hungry. You didn't touch the alcohol and there wasn't much to eat last night. Don't lie to me."

"I'm not."

"You know what," her back straightens as she leans over the table, "I know why you're being like this. You've lived like this for so long, haven't you. You're used to this, whatever this is. Not being able to pay for things. Breakfast. Clothes. A decent place. You've accepted this. But I don't. I won't."

"Just stop!" I hiss out, feeling like all heads are turned to us, ears cocked. "You know know anything about me or what I'm used to. So just…"

A tentative placement of a latte on the table and my words and our heads separate. It's the server with drinks, napkins, sugar and cream. We're still staring each other down, tangled in a battle of wills.

"Eggs Benedict for me. Belgian waffle for her. Unless you prefer something else?"

"Uh—no. That's fine."

And just like that, I've lost. I know she's seen the split second my eyes fluttered in surprise. But of all things, today, she remembers. What else does she remember, just the noteworthy, or the insignificant details, like my favourite breakfast food? Does she try to remember, does she want to?

"Guess not. Thanks." She doesn't watch the server leave, eyes honed on mine. They had never wandered since we slid into the corner booth, across from each other.

I let my head fall back onto the booth seat, bouncing gently. The thrill of expectation, of intrigue suddenly gone. "I'm going to pay you back," I insist. "For all of this. Someday. Every penny."

She looks at me, lips quirking, looking distraught, amused, and uncertain all at once. "I don't want your money."

"And I don't want yours."

-

I shut the car door firmly, cutting off the outside world.

But not quite everything. "Your waitressing job is shit and you know it."

"Thanks for sharing." I lean back into the seat, closing my eyes, feeling the beginnings of a migraine. My lower half breathes in relief, and every other part dreads the return to too-long hours, too-little pay, and unsavoury customers. There's a paycheck in my back pocket, toeing the limits of being adequate.

I think back to when she had told me, under no uncertain terms, that she would be the one to watch me walk into the diner and out of it, the one who drove me to work and dropped me off.

"_No, what do you mean no?" _

"_I said no. You're not my sitter and I'm not a child that needs to be watched twenty-four seven." _

"_You know if it can't be me I'll still have someone watching out for you." _

"_You'd hire someone? Don't you think that's going a little too far?" _

"_No, I'd do anything for a little peace of mind. What is this about? Your dignity, your pride? That you've been alone and holding yourself up so long you can't stand to have someone take just a little bit of that weight? You're not the damned Atlas, Spencer. I'm just trying to keep you safe." _

"_You're not helping me, Ashley." _

"_You don't want any help!" _

"_Not from you." _

"_You'd rather be out on the streets than with me?" She lets out a burst of air, a harsh laugh. "You're not an idiot, Spencer. You don't exactly have a choice, here." _

"_So I'm just going to accept you holding my hand every time I cross the road?" _

"_If that what it takes." _

"_Okay, you just—whatever. This arrangement won't be for very long." _

_I shoot her a short, meaningful glance, and she looks a little less sure. _

Is she thinking of this, the way I am? This game of pulling and pushing. Two steps back for every one forward. Fighting circles. But I still can't get over those images of us, whenever I see her, lying in our beds, lounging on the couch, laughing in her car with the top down. That easy camaraderie, this unbearable awkwardness.

"Look, don't take this the wrong way," she starts, out of the blue, through the thick haze of my thoughts. "There's someone I know who does this after-school art program, for kids. It's just a couple block's walk away, at a community center. He's the only one teaching the class so he's stopped accepting students. Unless someone helps him even out the workload. He doesn't really require much."

"So you're going to use your—friend status, or whatever—to get him to hire me?"

"No. I showed him, the uh… the picture."

"You showed him what?" I ask softly, already knowing the answer, not believing it.

"The one you drew of me."

"The one without the eyes."

"Yeah, that's the one. He held it up next to me and said he'd hire whoever drew it on the spot."

And I had wondered, in the hospital, lying the bed, where it had gone. If I had lost it, if a nurse had thrown it away with a building panic. I spent hours reminding myself that it was cloyingly sentimental, not meant for me to keep.

"So that's where it went," I conclude, oddly apathetic.

"Yeah, and uh, I have still have it." Her hands flex around the wheel. "I didn't mean for any of it. I didn't want to show him. It didn't feel right—like it was too personal."

"You don't have to explain it. It's yours. I gave it to you."

"That's why I think I felt that way."

--

We're still squabbling when she pulls inevitably into the community center.

"I keep trying to help you. You keep pushing me away."

"You ever stop to wonder why?" I scoff, disbelief trickling into my tone. "I don't need your help. I already have a job."

"Spence…"

"And don't call me that."

"I will. Spencer. Just wait." She slides in her seat, towards me. An open palm hovers over my thigh, bobbing to accentuate her words. "Look, don't let me… what you've got against me or all these things get in the way of a job opportunity, okay? Please. Just go inside, talk to the guy. That's all I ask."

"I'm so tired of fighting you," I admit. But I don't admit that somewhere, somehow, we haven't changed at all. There's nothing different about seeing Ashley's face, not unalike from the one in my mind's eye, or hearing her voice. Then having these familiar things thrown at me, now, but angry, disconsolate, and desperate. It's unfitting, somehow, like seeing her image, doctored, three sizes too large, into a crowd.

"Do it for you," she continues, nevertheless. "He needs someone. You're perfect."

"You're biased." I open the door and scoot off my seat. It's minutes too late when I look back, pondering the legitimacy of my comment.

_-_

_"It was a dark and stormy night." _

_"And that was clearly a cry for help." _

_"It was? Good." An eyebrow rose. She smirked and slid her notebook across the table. _

_"You want me to write it for you?" I recoiled, disapproval my first and only reflex. "Yeah, I wonder who wouldn't tell the difference." _

_"God, Spence. Relax, would ya. I was kidding," she snickered, not even attempting to restrain herself. " Wait, maybe you could dumb it down a little bit—" _

_"Shut up and work. How hard could an eleventh-grade paper be for Ashley Davies, God." _

_"You're the boss." _

_"Jerk." _

_"Oh, wait for it. Wait for it." The end of her pen met her temple in a light beat, maybe to the one that was constantly in her mind. It paused on the way down to paper, a quick stop for her to tap the back end against her chin. "Once upon a…" _

_"Now you're not even trying." _

_"Hey!" She waved her pen in my face, until I swatted it away. "It takes effort to look this good, every day." _

_"Now use that effort and put out." _

_"That I can…" _

_"An essay!" _

_"Wasteful," she waved dismissively._

_"Your priorities are so screwed up." _

_She only laughed. _

_"Just pretend you're writing one of your songs, or something," I suggested, off-handedly. _

_"I've tried that. It's different. It's like..." She broke off, frowning at me pensively. _

_"Too personal?" _

_She took a second too long, eyes narrowing as she took me in. Then she turned away, curls falling around her face and shoulders as she bent over her work. "Yeah, something like that." _

_-_

"So…? How'd go with uh, new boss? "

"Not my boss yet. And his name is Kent. But he reminds me of Mr. Dougall."

"Our high school music teacher? I can't believe you remember him! The chubby, balding guy, right?" Kyla chuckles. "He's like, still the only person I've ever known that manages to be completely honest and funny… and pull it off."

"I know." I pause to shoot her a smile. "Oh, I'm going back for an interview tomorrow."

"You know that's just for show, right?" Kyla beams at me, stepping out as the elevator doors open, walking backwards to continue our conversation. "You've got this one. On the money."

"Damn right," I reply before I realize, because Kyla's unerring optimism and friendship has always made me feel like they should. And I think, for the longest and hardest yet, that _this_ isn't so bad.

Kyla laughs, unlocking the door to Ashley's apartment.

"Wait. Ash just got back from schmoozing with her band so she's probably a little out of it."

"Schmoozing? Ashley?" I give her a look.

"Really just drinking and girls." Kyla shrugs, looking idly around. "She used to like it."

"Now?"

"Not so much lately. I don't know what has changed for her lately," she smiles at me, a smile cut from stone.

"A lot has."

"Too much," she murmurs. "Well, I'll see you later, yeah?"

"Thanks for the ride back, Kyla."

"Anytime."

I lean against the doorframe, watching her re-enter the elevator, giving her a finger wave from the gap between the closing doors.

I turn the lock and study the unlit apartment closely. Nothing out of the ordinary, no bottles lying around, no clothes on the floor, not one thing out of place. What did I expect? Why?

"Hey, Ashley? You okay?" I call out, before I can stop myself. It wouldn't have been wrong to leave her alone in the dark, wherever she is, with a girl in her bed, draped over the toilet, half-conscious on the floor somewhere. Wouldn't it?

Then I hear it, somewhere between a whine and a moan.

Following it to her room, heart pounding at what I might see an don't want to so see, and stop at the door, trying not to openly look around when really, I am. It's too dimly lit, only by the lights of the city through flimsy curtains, but I can't resist. "Did I wake you up? Do you need anything? I'm sorry."

She's on the bed, the thick covers in a jumble. Her head lolls to one side, eyes shadowed by her lashes, but unmistakably looking at me.

We hold that look for a couple long, aching minutes. Then she looks away, suddenly speaking. "You get this look, sometimes." She looks out the glass doors, as if the potted azalea outside on the balcony happens to have caught and held her attention.

"Like someone's dangling something in front of you, but you're too afraid to go after it. As if it's been pulled out of reach too many times and you can't believe that this time—this time, whoever's doing that to you won't be so cruel."

I struggle with my words, and the cotton-candy silence in the entire apartment between us, expanding and forcing us apart. What I'm supposed to do, leave or stay? I could leave to spare her the words shaken loose in her inebriated state she might regret. But more than ever I want to stay to hear the first real honesty I've heard from her in all this time. In the midst of everything I manage one noncommittal syllable. "Yeah?"

"It makes me want to shoot that person. Whoever's holding doing that to you. Then I realize I was probably that person."

She flops onto her side, limbs splayed, the covers outlining her form hazily in the dark. A notebook falls off the bed and sprawls open, hers. There's a pen tucked into the spiral binding. There are words, I can see in the dim light, between the lines, on the lines, packed tightly into the margins.

Her eyes are hooded, meeting mine, holding them, as if she's sober. Because it's what she never stops doing, when she's sober. It's always been the most unsettling part about her. I retrieve it, putting it somewhere near her curled fingers. She smells faintly like alcohol, food spices, cigarette smoke and perfume.

"I've been writing," she smiles ruefully.

"Do you always drink this much?"

"I haven't. Not since—not since—" Then she's asleep, somewhere beyond the fetters of ordinary speech, the answer left to dangle above us.

-

The next day dawns bright and empty. I even dare to visit Ashley's room, but the bed, with its heap of crumpled covers, is cold. I make it without realizing what I'm doing, and flee from the apartment like I've been caught with my hand in a cookie jar.

Reviewing all the possible questions on the short walk, the interview as brief as one statement.

"Consider it a bonus."

"I get paid on hire?" I hold the cheque out, between my hands, hardly believing it. "No. I can't accept this."

He pushes my hands back towards me, check safely ensconced. "Yeah, well. Take it as a sign of what's to come. Now, go away. But remember to come back."

I meander outside, to sit on the steps. This is enough. To rent a decent little place, to hold myself up, until I save enough to just go on with one job. I've done it before, on less. I can do it now.

"Hey."

My head shoots up to look at her, hands trembling although my mind tells them it's too late to hide it now.

"Hi."

-

"_Hey." She leaned against the doorway to my room, smirking in amusement at me sprawled across the bed, books and papers spread before me, the sheets draped across my body and head like a tent. _

"_Hi." _

"_Got room under there for me?" _

"_No. One-person party." _

"_Having too much fun for two?" She faked a pout. _

"_Well..." My answer was cut short as she crossed in three quick strides and leapt onto the bed, scattering papers as she wrapped her arms around the lump of blankets that was me, pinning me sideways as I fell onto the bed under her weight. _

"_You crashed my party." I scowled at her smug expression. _

"_You reminded of that one Halloween your dad dressed you up as the Charlie Brown ghost." _

"_Oh?" _

"_You were so cute!" She dragged out the last word long and high, mocking the comments I had gotten that day in my ripped up white sheet. _

"_You are so annoying." I looked at the papers spread out on the ground. "Look what you did." _

"_So anal." She rolled her eyes, making sure to rock the bed as she launched herself onto the ground. She returned with a stack of papers, suddenly removing a small crumpled slip from the top. _

"_Oops. That's mine. Must've fallen out." _

"_What's that?" I asked, noticing her hastiness. _

"_Well, they…" She looked down at it, frowning. "They want me to audition for them." _

"_Who?" _

"_Some record label." _

_I take her wrist and turn her palm up to read the slip of paper in her hand. "That's not just some record label." _

"_I know… I just… I wanted something big and now I have it." _

"_It's pretty hard to believe, isn't?" _

_She looked at her feet and nodded. _

"_Come here." My hand still on her wrist, I pulled her onto the bed next to me. "I'm not surprised, Ash. I knew you'd make it. You just needed the right person to hear you sing." _

"_Maybe, but…" She drifted off, leaning her head into the crook between my shoulder and neck, like she thought I could hide her away, even if just for a little while. _

-

"What's this?" Her eyes read the numbers on the slip of paper, and up, wide, to read mine.

"Did you know he was going to do this?"

"Of course I didn't."

"Would you have let him, if you knew?"

"Don't ask me to answer that."

"So you wouldn't."

"Just listen to me for a minute. I know what you're thinking." She suddenly drops to the doorstep, sitting next to me. Her words no longer tight and forceful, but quiet and fast. "You can't go out there with so little. You'll work yourself sick. It'll be months before you can live comfortably. You can't do this."

"You're saying I can't?"

"I…"

"You can't damn well stop me."

"Please don't do this. You can't walk yourself out of the hospital and into another one. Do you know what it did to me, finding you like that? God, I've been so afraid to bring it up with you. Because I don't want to know why you could do that to yourself. How you got pushed so far…" She stops for breath. "Do you hate living with me that much? Is that it? You can't stand me. 'Cause I get that. That I get."

She reaches out, tapping my arm, the one holding the check.

"Do whatever you want with this, but Spencer—I won't give up on you. Not now. Not since I found you, like that."

I look at her, and I know my eyes are full of mistrust. "You can't expect me to believe you this time."

She doesn't skip a beat. "Then don't. Believe in yourself, because you know, to me, it looks like you gone too long without. You have a new chance, Spencer. A fighting chance. Don't go back there. Don't put yourself back there."

"Here, I have an extra key in the car." She works the house key out of her key ring, grabbing my hand and curling my fingers around it. "You know the way back. Please, think about it. I'll wait for you."

"Why?"

She looks at me, hard, then grabs my wrist to pull me towards her. As soon as I'm close enough her other hand circles my waist under the thick wool of my jacket. It all happens in a second. Her lips are hot and delicate my own, and the sudden hitch of my breath brings in the subtle scent of her perfume to swim in my head, for long after I stare at her leaving with the sharp click of her heels across the parking lot.

-

The sun is a smudge of yellow on the horizon when Kent comes out, car keys jangling, and almost walks into me on the steps.

"Stop crying and go home."

"I don't know if that's what I want to do."

He sighs, sinking down to his raised ankles next to me, balancing on his toes.

"Do you love her?"

"I don't know how I could."

"Do you trust her, then?"

"I don't know if I should."

"So you hate her."

"That's a, uh, strong word." I wince, seeing my retreat as the feeble thing it is.

He leans forward, opening me like a book, and shocks me mute. "You never corrected me when I said go home."


End file.
